Newmar’s Tubman: ‘Freedom Aire’ Expands Luxury Brand – RVBusiness – Breaking RV Industry News
Newmar certainly caught the attention of its dealer base – if not the industry at large – with this week’s introduction during its dealer show held at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, Colo., of the Freedom Aire Compact C motorhome, the company’s first foray beyond its current Class A and Super C offerings.
Built on a Mercedes-Benz 4500 chassis, the Freedom Aire debuts with two floorplans – a twin-bed model as well as the 2515 prototype on display, highlighted by a slideout on the driver’s side offering a king-size Murphy bed over a dinette. Every inch of the coach is optimized to enhance livability and offers six distinctive exterior finishes. The optional solar package includes roof-mounted panels as well as Newmar’s first-ever external and movable solar panel option, increasing solar capacity by up to three times. This advancement empowers owners to venture further off-grid with greater independence.
Following the Freedom Aire’s reveal, Newmar President Casey Tubman spoke with RVBusiness about what the new product and new segment means for the company, the Nappanee, Ind.-based subsidiary of Winnebago Industries.
RVBusiness: Casey, we’re standing here and looking at your brand new, all-new Freedom Aire motorhome, which you are calling a “Compact C.”
Tubman: That’s correct. Some people reference B-Plus, but there’s no such thing as that class. We call it a Compact C.
RVBusiness: Newmar is known as a manufacturer of Class A motorhomes and, more recently, Super C’s. So, what does this new product and new segment means for Newmar as a company?
Tubman: Newmar has a great brand name for 50-plus years now – even in the past when we were producing fifth-wheels. We eventually moved into diesels and we became known as a diesel brand or a Class A brand. And, while we’ve brought in Super C’s and dabbled our toe in the water a couple of years ago, this year, we said, “We want to become known as a luxury brand.” Doesn’t matter if it’s a Class A, Class B, Class C, Compact C – whatever it is. We eventually want to have an offering for everyone that wants a luxury Newmar experience, best quality in the industry, best craftsmanship, all those industry firsts that we talk about. You buy a Newmar, that’s what you get.
RVBusiness: So, Let’s talk about some of the highlights of the Freedom Aire. Your VP of Sales, Matt Ellinger, said it has “Diesel DNA.”
Tubman: I call it “Newmar DNA,” but he likes to say “Diesel DNA.”
RVBusiness: From the side-opening baggage doors in the basement storage, to the integrated rooftop awning, to the rear caps – the whole thing truly looks like a diesel pusher, but on a 25-foot Mercedes Benz 4500 Sprinter chassis.
Tubman: And on the inside, because of the limited space, we wanted to make sure we made the most of it. But having the Italian leather theater seats with the full power recline, adjustable headrest – things of that nature – make it super comfortable.
I was joking with my wife the other day. When you get in those seats, it’s business class versus a coach class. When you’re flying, it’s business class, you have a flip-out tray, it’s real nice, it’s heavy duty. The comfort is all there, and you can recline back and take a nap. We wanted to do things like that. It’s a 25-foot unit and we put a king-size bed in there. Unheard of.
But we know our customers, and again, one in five of our Newmar owners are talking about downsizing because they’re aging out. We want to keep them in the brand; they want to stay in the brand. I had many people come to us at our rallies asking, “When are you going to bring something?” Or, “Can I go into one of your sister brands and still stay a member of your club?” And we just wanted to bring this product so that they would have that.
Something else we pride ourselves with is our craftsmanship. A lot of times we’ll say the Amish craftsmanship of Nappanee, Indiana. This has wood cabinets, hard surface countertops. It’s again, Newmar inside. We didn’t want to compromise on what the customer is buying. We worked on different trade-offs in weight because that’s always the question on these. And again, we’re going to end up right around that 750-to-800 pounds of carrying capacity, which when you add two people and all their stuff for camping, that’s about what it takes. And again, I would say that’s if not the highest, it’s probably the second highest in the industry for this one.
RVBusiness: And, as you said earlier, while what we’re looking at is a prototype and changes should be expected, but this will be a 2026 model and you’re expecting to go into production with it sometime this summer?
Tubman: This is a 2026 production model. It will go to production over the summer and then we will ramp up as the summer goes and be full running in the fall. We have two floorplans right now that we’re working on. And again, multiple exteriors that you can see there, including an available Onyx package.
One other thing I should mention is, it’s a Compact C, but what you probably don’t realize is those walls are built like all our other walls, 16-inch on center, aluminum stud walls, fully insulated, again, fiberglass cap on the back, fiberglass cap on the front and integrated awnings, you mentioned that, but it really is the Newmar construction here that you’re seeing, which again, no one else does
RVBusiness: The Sprinter chassis was intentional, obviously.
Tubman: We wanted the Mercedes chassis because it represents a brand similar to Newmar. And it was a perfect fit for us. The 4,500 gives us an extra thousand pounds of carrying capacity for that customer.
Again, special things like that bunk doesn’t have a nursing home curtain to cover you up when you’re sleeping. It’s a nice blind or shade as we have in our other units. That’s what you’ll find in there. And what people talk about is those bunks get high. We pump AC into that bunk area separately where a lot of people just pump it to the end of the run and point it that way. We ducted it into the actual cab.
What else? We made sure the shower, that bathroom, porcelain toilet, glass saying, it feels like a Newmar. And the shower is big enough for our engineering lead, JP LaPorte, who is 6-foot-5. And then we put (VP Marketing & Strategy) Ryan Buursrta, the 6-foot-4 guy, up in the bunk because we want to make sure it’s usable for these people.
RVBusiness: You sound pretty pumped.
Tubman: Yes, we’re very excited. This is the first of what we want to do, expanding our brand to more areas. We want people to know Newmar is a luxury brand and this is the way we do that. Again, it’s the first of many.
