Featherlite

The company's own history page traces the business to 1987, when Michael Guth set up Vantaré International in Sanford, Florida, to build motor yachts and motorhomes. In 1991 Vantaré showed its first motorhome, a yacht-style interior inside a Prevost shell, at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show.

In 1996 Featherlite, a publicly traded maker of aluminum trailers led by Conrad Clement, bought the assets of Vantare International and took over its Sanford plant. Featherlite's annual report for 1997 lists the purchase agreement as dated July 1, 1996, and shows the coaches being sold as Vantare by Featherlite. It lists three coaches, built on the Prevost XL-40, XL-45 and H3-45 shells, with retail prices from $500,000 to $900,000 or more, and says a slide-out model had been added. Motorcoach sales grew from about $14.8 million in 1996 to about $34.4 million in 1997.

The Sanford plant was leased from the Seminole Port Authority and had about 55,000 square feet of production and office space. In 1997 it gained another 24,000 square feet plus 6,000 square feet of outdoor service bays. In 1998 Featherlite also bought the assets of the company that made Vogue motorhomes. It stopped building the Vogue in 2001.

By the mid-2000s the coaches were sold as Featherlite Vantare and Featherlite Luxury Coaches. The annual reports for 2004 and 2005 say Featherlite bought every shell from Prevost, and describe bus conversions as a high-end niche where the most luxurious coaches sell for $800,000 to $1,500,000 or more. The 2004 report describes Featherlite as the dominant producer of Prevost H model conversions. The company's history page says that in 2000 Featherlite became the only converter Prevost authorized to build and install its own slide rooms, and that it built its 500th motorhome in 2004.

In 2006 Featherlite agreed to be bought by Universal Trailer Holdings Corp. for $6.50 a share. The trailer buyer did not keep the coach business. A new company, Featherlite Coaches, Inc., was formed in June 2006 by Conrad Clement, Tracy Clement and a Featherlite shareholder named Bulk Resources, Inc. It took over the motorcoach division's assets and substantially all of its liabilities when the merger closed in late October 2006. From then on, Featherlite trailers and Featherlite coaches were separate businesses.

In 2008 Featherlite Coaches became part of the Adams family's group of businesses, which also includes Amadas Coach of Suffolk, Virginia. The two companies already knew each other: the history page says Featherlite hired Amadas Coach in 2003 to build its XLII motorhome. Jimmy Adams is the company's president. Production moved from Sanford to Suffolk, and the company says the first Vantaré built entirely in Suffolk was shown at the 2010 Tampa RV Super Show. The Sanford site stayed open for sales and service.

Today Featherlite is one of the converters listed on Prevost's motorhome site. The company says it builds six to eight coaches a year on the Prevost H3-45 and X3-45 shells, with up to four slide-outs, and that it has finished more than 800 coaches in all. Each coach carries a number and a name, such as #2126 Verbier.

Featherlite also sells a separate brand called Epic Motor Coach, built on the Prevost X shell. Epic's own website says the line draws on the teams at Ultra Coach, with advice from Featherlite and Amadas, and is sold only through Featherlite. Because those pages do not name Featherlite as the builder, Epic coaches are not listed as Featherlite models in this record.