Terry
LIFE MEMBER
While I can agree with you to a degree it doesn’t put a lot of costs to a manufacturing company. Be it LHD or RHD they have already gone to the costs of making steering racks etc and at the bolting up stage makes no difference be it R/LHD. Indeed they have researched the market share they expect.Stellantis knew what they wanted from the start of manufacturing when they made a wider vehicle than anyone else chasing the leisure market.Commercial Vans are a massive market. PVCs are a niche market and converters don't place orders for tens of thousands each year. The RHD ones for the UK conversion market are going to be a very small fraction of the overall number. More like hundreds than thousands, and that includes a lot of options that the UK White Van Man doesn't need or want. RHD vans are probably coming off the assembly lines in relatively small batches compared to LHD ones. The number of RHD vans with paint finishes other than Van Man White is a tiny percentage so other colours are done separately in small batches and that adds to cost and delays. Some Fiat colours have got a bad reputation for the paint quality including the notorious flaking roof paint. It might be OK for builders who are less fussy than us.
Hence we get very long lead times for MHs with multiple base vehicle options and body colours to suit individual buyers. I placed an Order in October (NEC) for delivery in the following April that eventually stretched to June handover. That was before Covid when things really went to pot.
Fiat used to have 85% of the market for conversions and it was their policy to target this leisure market with specs to suit converters. After they became part of Stellantis that priority seems to have changed. Now they have only about half the MH market so we can't expect Fiat/Peugeot/Citroen to go the extra mile to defend a dwindling market share. We are a very small part of the overall Stellantis customer base.
The only thing that has changed for them is that Ford, VW, and Mercs are chasing some of that market and discounting vehicles to grab a share. Sure using your 85/15 % share is still a very sizeable market across the world.
It’s not the price of the vehicles that’s affecting making RHD/LHD it’s what customers are prepared to pay for whichever vehicle they think is best value. Lots of Fords are beginning to to used in leisure market in the last few years.
Out of interest was your wait /delay more down to having a vehicle made RHD by a foreign company that usually made LHD vehicles? That would cause the makers to order you a base vehicle that was out of the ordinary. Bit like if you ask a British maker to make a LHD van for you