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Old 02-15-2004, 02:29 PM   #3
cjc
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Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Cape Coral, Florida, USA
Posts: 53
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Hey Photoguy, I have a Showhauler garage coach and I looked at the others that are built in the Elkhart area. I chose Showhauler for the same reasons that most of the members on this site have spoken about. I've seen and been in a number of Kingsley coaches. Their factory is located in Pa., so they are also an East Coast dealer. Their coaches are also quite a bit more expensive than the others that you mentioned. Most are in the $500,000 range. As far as quality goes, I've only seen one that I fell in love with. It's a garage coach with some ribboney type graphics and a large American Flag and is on their website. This particular Kingsley appears to be flawless. I even doubted that it was made by the same people that put together other Kingsley's that I had seen prior to this one. The ones that I had seen before this one had fiberglass skins that were not gelcoated and therefore, even though they had expensive complete two part paint jobs, the fiberglass mat showed through, spoiling the look. Their woodwork was just ok and interior design appeared bland. The exterior wall to roof connection appeared sloppy although it might have been perfectly functional, but then again, maybe not. Esthetically, for coachs that cost half a million, the workmanship appeared shabby. I also question the ethics of a company that builds coaches without regard to some states motor vehicle laws. They have built coaches that are up to 63 feet in length. Most states, although some don't enforce the law, only allow a length of 45 feet. Kingsley builds whatever you want according to the depth of your pockets. However, having said all that, here's the scoop on the one coach that they built that I mentioned previously. This particular coach had more bells and whistles than anything I've ever seen. They had four cameras, one pointing to the rear downward, one to the rear outward, one set at the roof height forward to look out for low hanging branches and one on the right side blind spot. The exterior skin was gelcoated before a deep, flawless two part, multiple clearcoat paint job was applied. There was no oilcanning effect on the skins that showed the verticle framing members as I had seen on previous coaches. The wall to roof joint was neat and clean. The interior was tasteful and the thing that impressed me most was the tile job that covered the front half of the coach. They used a blue granite square edged tile. They laid this tile so carefully that not one edge stood proud of any other. It looked like a sheet of flat ice. Gorgeous and extremely hard to acheive by even the most experienced tile setters. The coach is 48 feet long and I believe was built on a fairly new Kenworth chassis with a Detroit? engine. They were trying to sell it for about $500,000. If your pockets are that deep, it might be worth a trip to the factory. Maybe they've finally started building products that are worth what they attempt to sell them for. If you're like the rest of us, stick with a Showhauler and enjoy. Good luck.
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