A camper trailer recently rolled off a Dandenong assembly line as the 90,000th Jayco built. The company first began production in a nearby paddock shed some 31 years ago.

No other recreational vehicle (RV) builder in the country has ever produced so many models in the history of Australian RV manufacture.

“Since the very first camper trailer, we have gone on to produce seven different products, covering 150 models. While retaining a range of camper trailers, we have over the decades also added pop-tops, expanding caravans, caravans as well as park cabins and in more recent times motorised campervans and motorhomes,” a delighted Gerry Ryan said.

“Now we are concentrating on next year, when we will unveil our new $35 million state-of-the-art production plant which will have the capacity to produce at least 10,000 units annually,” Mr Ryan said.

As managing director and founder of Jayco Mr Ryan has steered the company from very humble beginnings to be the nation’s premier RV manufacturer with 44 per cent of the Australian RV market and the biggest exporter of RVs to Zealand.

It was fitting that the 90,000th unit was camper trailer, for it was camper trailers that launched Jayco in the winter of 1975.

Back in 1975 there were just five people including Mr Ryan working for Jayco and they were building just one unit a day. Today, the company employs 600 people and a new Jayco comes off the assembly line every 13 minutes.

In 2007, the new plant, which will be the largest in the Southern Hemisphere, will centre on a 40 hectare site where Mr Ryan expects to increase staff numbers by as many as another 150 to meet production capacity.

“It seemed only proper that it be a camper trailer to mark the 90,000th unit. I recall how basic the first model was compared with today’s camper trailers. Now 50 per cent of all our camper trailers are built as Outback models, because there has been a real opening up of Australia’s remote regions to tourism and RV travel is the most obvious and easiest way to enjoy this great nation of ours,” Mr Ryan said.

“Now on to next year, a new factory, a new capacity to build 10,000 units a year, and a new milestone when we the 100,000th Jayco rolls off a new assembly line,” Mr Ryan added.

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