The luxury features and sophisticated engineering built into today's Tiffin coaches were unimaginable back when Bob Tiffin built the first Allegro in 1972. But most of the same basic truths guide Tiffin Motorhomes today. Build it well. Make it better. Back it with good service. Treat customers the way they would want to be treated. Always answer the phone.

From the start, a dedication to doing things right.

In 1941, Alex Tiffin began Tiffin Supply Co., a lumberyard and general merchandise store in Red Bay, Alabama. From that business start-up, two more generations of Tiffins and more than 50,000 RV owners have profited by Alex Tiffin's strong sense of customer service. Alex's son Bob joined his father at Tiffin Supply, which sold just about everything needed to build and furnish a house.

Bob often saw more than 75 customers a day and understood the customer policy: If you don't treat people fairly, you can't look them in the eye. Bob made sure he could look his customers and neighbors in the eye.

In 1965, Alex Tiffin and a handful of investors bought a state-of-the-art cotton gin, when cotton was still king in Alabama and much of the South. The operations manager quit before the first bale arrived for ginning. Alex turned to his 23-year-old son Bob, who took to the cotton business, machinery and management like it was second nature.

Soon he had the gin operating at ten bales an hour. He still marvels at the way the gin was engineered. Looking back years later, Bob smiles about his abiding fondness for anything mechanical -- especially something that rolls.

As the cotton gin became a steady contributor to the Tiffin enterprise, a new manufacturing operation came to Red Bay. The Commodore Co. opened plants to build manufactured housing and recreational vehicles. Many of their supplies were purchased from Tiffin Supply Co. The Tiffins learned more and more about their new customer and its products. After three years, the Commodore Co. called it quits, closing its doors.

In 1972, the Chevrolet dealership in Red Bay was stuck with a dozen RV chassis. That also happened to be a poor year for cotton in Franklin County. Bob looked at the family's empty cotton warehouse, the chassis gathering dust in the Chevy dealership and proposed a new venture to his dad. Alex Tiffin agreed, and Tiffin Motorhomes was born.

Just as 1972 was a bad year for cotton and Commodore, it was a tough time to launch a motorhome operation. A fuel crisis left angry motorists waiting in long lines at gas stations. Suddenly, after the celebrated era of the muscle cars and huge stationwagons, Americans learned to pay attention to miles-per-gallon.

The RV industry was in its infancy then. Winnebago, Champion and Open Road were just a few years ahead of Tiffin.

Fortunately, there are motorhomes and there are well-built, competitively priced motorhomes. And customer service.

Since the Tiffins had worked so closely with residential construction, Bob decided to build the Tiffin RV like a house. He started with a hefty steel frame on the chassis, then followed with a strong steel skirt. His competitors were using exterior plywood below the floor and a Fiberglass or aluminum coach skin.

Tiffin's 16-gauge structural steel skirts covered with the same aluminum skin used in the walls became a first in the RV industry. Tiffin coaches sported a durability the competition could not match. In 1980, Tiffin introduced the first motorhome basement, which provided much more storage room and accommodated larger water, sewage and fuel tanks.

Tiffin was one of the first RV manufacturers to offer slideouts and a lower-end diesel pusher.

As the Tiffin reputation for quality and service spread through the RV market, Bob developed a small but dedicated dealer network, which now numbers about 100 in the U.S. and Canada. The RV Dealers Association has honored Tiffin with its coveted Quality Circle Award for dealer satisfaction seven of the eight years the award has been presented.

Not all the development of Tiffin coaches takes place in the plant or listening to customers. With notepads in hand, all members of the family management team travel in motorhomes each year, tracking down the rare squeak, brainstorming the next floorplan, experiencing first-hand what it's like to pull into a tight restaurant parking lot.

In that converted cotton warehouse in 1972, Bob set a modest production goal of two motorhomes a day. Thirty-three years later, the 50,000th coach rolled off the Tiffin production line. Those early coaches, about the length of a minivan and so simple the owners could fix just about everything that broke, bear faint resemblance to a present-day Zephyr, 45 feet of state-of-the-art electronics including the huge LCD TVs (living room, bedroom and outside), global positioning and satellite dish. The four slides almost double the on-road width. Three A/C units, a kingsize bed, exquisite cabinetry and other crafted woodwork, plus tile and carpeted floors. The Allegro, Allegro Bay, Phaeton and Allegro Bus also boast many of the Zephyr's features.

As the coaches have become more elaborate the business has expanded to meet customer demand. Tiffin can produce 3,000 motorhomes a year, and Bob predicts that in the coming years, production could reach 5,000. A 45-bay service and parts operation, a welcome center and a production plant for Tiffin's PowerGlide chassis have been recent additions.

The Tiffin payroll has shown steady gains, with minor adjustments for economic trends. RV industry observers note that it's not the number of employees but the attitudes of employees that make Tiffin stand out. Other motorhome manufacturers are clustered in Indiana and California. Observers say that for many of the workers in those plants, it's just a job on an assembly line.

At the Tiffin plant, customers are invited to wander throughout the manufacturing and service areas, to look over a technician's shoulder, to ask questions. If a customer wants to sleep in his or her coach while it's in the shop for overnight service, fine. Tiffin workers ask their managers about customer feedback, the competition and the industry. As the saying goes, we're all in this together, but at Tiffin, it shows.

Folks in Red Bay are quick to acknowledge that their community is very dependent on Tiffin and the customers Tiffin brings to the area. North Alabama is rich in homegrown industries, and of these, Tiffin remains among the most stable. When the clothing industries began moving production to Mexico, Tiffin kept Red Bay secure with jobs. With its good pay scale, benefits and sense of belonging to a great company, Tiffin does not have a big turnover rate. Once you are there, you stay.

With this close relationship binding customers, community, managers, workers and dealers, you can be assured that the future is going to be more of the same. More quality. More intense communication that leads to improvements. More happy customers, many of whom are proud to be driving their sixth or seventh Tiffin Motorhome.

Alex Tiffin passed away in 2004, but not before he had a good long chance to see how a general supply and lumber company in a small town with three traffic lights could spawn an industry leader.

As Bob Tiffin eats catfish with his eldest grandson Leigh, a University of Alabama place kicker like his father, you can tell that some of the same values that Alex gave Bob, that Bob and Judy gave Tim, Van and Lex, are being passed to a fourth generation of Tiffins.

The innovation never ends.

Tiffin is always looking for new ways to build more value into its motorhomes. The company has long been known for our impeccable customer service. But what many people don't realize is that Tiffin has also been a leader in industry innovations. As a result of listening to customers, Tiffin has introduced a number of groundbreaking products and processes:

Windows

Tiffin uses quarter-inch glass rather than the eighth-inch that most manufacturers use. The results are safer, quieter, more durable and energy efficient windows, much like the windows used in building a home.

Steps

Instead of bolting steps to the well as most manufacturers do, Tiffin welds directly to the frame. With steps attached to the chassis, Tiffin units are much more sturdy, and you never experience soft or loose steps.

Storage

Storage in a motorhome is a premium. Tiffin coaches use quality solid wood doors and have 55-60 cabinets and drawers. By comparison, most other manufacturers only offer 30-40.

Basement

Until 1980 no motorhome had a full basement for storage. Tiffin introduced the basement in its diesel pushers that year, then added that feature to gas-powered Tiffin coaches in 1986. Just about every other Class A manufacturer has followed that lead.

Triple Slide

Tiffin was the first company to introduce a three-slide unit in the Allegro Bus.

30' Double Slide

Tiffin is the only manufacturer to offer a 30-ft. coach with a double-slide in the Allegro.

Chassis

Tiffin reinforces each chassis with additional steel crossbracing. This adds to the strength and integrity of the product and makes a safer and more durable motorhome for owners.

Warranty

Tiffin offers an industry-admired warranty on lamination (five years) and unitized construction (ten years).