B-Van Manufacturer Noovo Hosts Open House in Las Vegas – RVBusiness – Breaking RV Industry News
LAS VEGAS – Noovo recently opened its doors to local and national media, supplier partners, and customers at its facility in Las Vegas, Nevada. Noovo’s open house event detailed the company’s origins, evolution, and its vision heading into the next few years as it promotes its approach to “van life”.
Noovo’s open house was held April 5-6 at its relatively new 20,000 square-foot facility near Nellis Air Force Base, where screaming jets performing acrobatics punctuated the event. In 2024, Noovo moved from a much smaller facility in Las Vegas as the company honed its focus to producing “livable” vans.
“Our vans are like an extension of your home where you can live on the road rather than off-grid adventure vans,” says Benoit Lafond, who founded Noovo with Paul Aubert and Antoine Alberteau in 2020.
“Our specialty is Class B vans – that’s all we carry – and we were looking for something unique that doesn’t cannibalize the brands on our lot,” says Nick Schmidt, owner of Sunshine State RVs in Gainesville, Florida, one of the largest Class B dealers in North America and the exclusive dealer for Noovo. “We’ve found the market for these, generally, has been a younger customer who works remote on the road and wants something where they can sleep and work.”
Despite the current uncertainty in the market, Schmidt is fairly bullish on 2025 for Sunshine State RVs. “We’ve seen a boost from people who want to go ahead and lock in their price for an RV. We’re up 20 percent from 2024 so far,” says Schmidt, who also attributes year-over-year growth to other dealers holding less Class B inventory, the momentum of the Class B market, and adding units like Noovo’s Plus series.
“After eight months on the road in the converted school bus we found there was a spot that was missing in the market. We had so much fun living on the road and we saw the possibilities for creating the same type of experience for others,” says Lafond.
Noovo customers Calvin and Patti Yarbrough, aka, Tripper and Slipper, respectively, are big proponents of life on the road and building a relationship with their RV builder.
“We’re realtors and understand the customer relationship; it’s really a service rather than sales business. Noovo was great about showing us how everything is built and their processes. They kept us up to date on every detail,” says Patti.
Calvin adds, “We’ve always heard about ABC when it comes to sales – always be closing – and I can’t embrace that. I think it’s the opposite: CBA – consistently be authentic. Sales should come from the passion that built the business.”
Before living full time in their Noovo van, the couple lived in an Airstream trailer on top of a mountain near Jasper, Georgia, having sold their house and acquired the land on which to park the trailer.
“Our experience with Airstream was phenomenal. We met the people who were actually building our trailer and loved the people we worked with there,” Patti says.
After hiking the Appalachian Trail in 2016 they started looking for a minimalist approach that would allow them to get back to the “intimacy we had on the trail and still build our careers,” Calvin explains.
They fully embraced the van life and made the trek to Las Vegas for Noovo’s open house, which concluded with a campout at Lake Mead. Noovo plans to make the open house an annual springtime event.
“We’re looking forward to continuing this tradition and offering even more opportunities for adventure seekers to connect, explore, and discover what Noovo has to offer,” says Maggie Shaffer, Noovo’s marketing director.
For a calendar of upcoming events at which Noovo will participate, go to https://www.noovolife.com/van-events/
