So I had time today to poke around Featherlite and this is what I found. They still manufacture at the plant I drive past in Cresco IA, it is the only plant they have. They were sold in December of 2019 which is around the time I saw the big change in the amount of inventory on their lot. After visiting their website today, I think they changed their production philosophy as they look to be a custom order facility now with about a 3-month lead-time. When you click on the inventory button it lists 1 new trailer and 4 used ones, all big trailers requiring a semi to pull. One reason their sales are so high is the average racing trailer is $330,000 to $375,000 which makes it much easier to be a $430M company rather than making it $4K-$10K at a time. Browsing their website shows a big focus on specialty high end trailers for racing, control and command centers (for emergencies) large food and vendors for LARGE events, custom horse trailers, and so on. Their lessor known trailers are all stocked at dealers across the US so I'm guessing the dealers order and own what's on their lots. An article I read said they have 400 manufacturing employees which suggest they have huge overhead in the sales, engineering, and marketing side of the business which makes sense since the big money is coming from expensive custom trailers. The lack of cars I see could be explained by when I drive past the plant which is usually late afternoon on Friday, and I return on Sunday morning. So good to know they are still around and hopefully doing well, sales sound strong, but sales don't always translate into profit. They have a rich history of being a premium trailer with a premium price to go with it.
