Prior to starting SMC, Perlot had been director of marketing for Beaver Coach Corporation. However, when Beaver's upper management balked at his suggestion to create a line of class A's for the moderate-priced market, Perlot was spurred to create his own motor home manufacturing company — which subsequently brought about the creation of popular brands with names evocative of exotic African travel such as Sahara, Serengeti, Cheetah, and Trek.

Success started to show its face when SMC introduced the Trek brand in the 1991 model year. This small to moderate-size gas-powered class A, featured the company's patented "Electro-majik" drop-down bed. The scaled-down Trek with its innovative features was something unique among class A's — a class A for those who didn't want to drive a big motor home but didn't want to give up class A comfort. Its popularity gave the company the opportunity to unveil the Continental — a "luxury" class A that sold for $169,000 — still well below the retail prices of their nearest competitors.

As success piled upon success and consumers and the RV industry alike began to take notice, Perlot decided in June of 1993 that SMC needed their own chassis-building company (Magnum Manufacturing), their own fiberglass factory (Composite Technologies), and their own electronic design, assembly, and manufacturing company. These companies were designed to support Safari's individualistic manufacturing style and to set them apart from the rest of the industry.

In 1993 when Beaver Motor Coaches declared bankruptcy, SMC, in a battle with Country Coach, acquired Beaver. By late May 1994, Perlot triumphed and brought the Beaver line of high-line class A's under SMC's banner. It wasn't long after this that I began to see indications that the Perlots were becoming distracted from their initial success by biting off more than they could chew with the Beaver purchase.

Another can of worms was opened in 1996 with the purchase of Honorbuilt (El Dorado class C, which failed) and again in 1997 when SMC diversified with a class C line under Harney Coach Works. In hindsight I'm sure that the Perlots would agree that this was the wrong product at the wrong time. This move complicated their already apparently out-of-control management problems. Beginning in 1996 their stocks began to plunge from a high of about $12 a share to $3.68 a share when SMC was bought out by Monaco Corp. in 2001.

With the history behind us, let's now consider what happened from the consumer's perspective. The sad story went something like this: The Beaver brands Contessa, Marquis, Monterey, and Patriot at first looked good in the hands of Safari; but management shakeups, poor quality control at the factory, poor customer service, and a series of lawsuits followed by bad publicity and tales of dissatisfied customers — which allegedly included verbal abuse and eviction from company premises by Mat Perlot personally — left SMC's RV industry status on shaky ground.

Satisfaction polls received by RVCG, many of which contained extensive comments concerning rude treatment by SMC's management, indicate that most of the problems encountered by consumers in the late '90's involved Beaver brands — notably the Marquis and Patriot. In approximately 200 satisfaction polls gathered by RV Consumer Group, reliability ratings for Beaver motor homes dropped from an average of 77 (quite good) prior to 1995 to an average of 63 (well below average) after the Safari takeover. Safari brands such as Trek and Cheetah, which hovered around 75 (average to good) pre-Beaver, dropped to a mere 70 in the years following the acquisition. One consumer comment we have on record puts it very well: "...a nice floor plan, pretty paint, and pretty wood don't make for a reliable, safe, or good motor home."

What can RV consumers learn from this saga of rise and fall of SMC? For one thing, its plunge from the pinnacle of success shows that talent and creativity are not enough to succeed in business. Diplomacy, fairness, generosity, and above all, the responsibility to stand behind one's product are essential. Although Mat Perlot started out strong with good ideas and good products, he apparently lost control because of too-rapid expansion and an unwillingness to bend with the wind.

Will Monaco turn things around for the Beaver and Safari brands? Will Beaver and Safari be safe buys in the near future? I don't have the answer right now, but I'll keep watching satisfaction polls and listening for indicators from buyers who are actively using Monaco's new versions of these brands. In a couple of years I should have the answer.

Stay tuned.

JD Gallant, Spring 2003