LXI thru the years

[davidbrady]

Hi Johnny, real nice to hear from you. I said in my initial post "Johnny Slone had" cause I wasn't sure. Glad to hear that you still have and are still enjoying your 1998.

Mine is a 2002. I've never seen another 2002 LXi. I know from Curt Sprenger's owner's list that there are at least two, including mine, but in all these years on forums and at rally's I've never seen another first hand, fwiw.

The production order for my body number: F132512, says that the order for my LXi was placed on 02/14/01. It also specifies the VIN number: 1BBCPB9802FXXXXXX. (I X-ed out the last 6 digits for privacy). You can see that the tenth digit is a (2) signifying a 2002 model, but it started life early in 2001.

It says that the customer was Holland Motor Homes in Michigan, and I know the first owner was Scott Hockett and he lived in Michigan. He took delivery of the bus in October of 2001 and kept the bus for three years and then I bought it.

The build sheet also uses the date 3/14/01 as the "SETUP DATE", whatever that means. I've always assumed that Wanderlodge got the chassis on or around 3/14/01 and it took them 6 months to build the motorhome for delivery to Scott on or around 10/2001, but my bus is documented as a 2002.

So I suppose it's not terribly unlike the automotive industry where vehicles delivered in the the fourth quarter are often given the next year as the official production year. It is interesting that buses which started in manufacturing as early as February of a given year are issued VINs of the following year.

Johnny, you know that in the Blue Bird Wanderlodge world it's hard to make absolute statements. Take a look at the following picture.



You can see that my 2002 has wood cabinetry above the windshield. Turns out sometime in early 2000 the Prevost converter Royale was sold to Monaco. Royale was owned and created by a husband and wife team. Mary Hurly (sp?) the missus, eventually landed at Wanderlodge as an interior designer and she brought with her some of her Royale designs. I know this because my bus is one of her designs and I've actually seen a Royale prevost with an identical interior down to the handles, fixtures, sconces, wall papers, and fabrics.