Roadtrek has been acquired by Conestogo Partners, giving one of the oldest and most recognizable names in the Class B motorhome market another new owner.
Conestogo Partners is described as a U.S.-based permanent-capital investment group focused on outdoor recreation. The purchase price and other financial terms were not disclosed.
Roadtrek confirmed the sale to RVBusiness, saying the acquisition strengthens the company’s focus on the North American market and its dealer and customer network.
The company will continue operating from its existing facilities in Cambridge, Ontario, under its current leadership. No immediate changes to Roadtrek’s day-to-day operations have been announced.
Roadtrek Will Phase Out the Westfalia Name
The ownership change will bring an end to Roadtrek’s agreement to build and sell Westfalia-branded RVs in North America.
Roadtrek will complete its currently scheduled Westfalia production. The existing Westfalia Wave floorplans—including the Wave Skylight, Wave SL and Wave for 2—are expected to continue for the 2027 model year under the Roadtrek name.
Current Westfalia vehicles will remain eligible for service and applicable warranty coverage. Westfalia models produced by Roadtrek have a two-year, unlimited-mileage warranty on the motorhome portion of the vehicle.
That part of the announcement is a little disappointing. I toured the new North American Westfalia models and really liked what Roadtrek was doing with them. The name carries plenty of history among camper-van enthusiasts, and the new models felt like a promising attempt to bring some of that identity back to this market.
The floorplans aren’t disappearing, at least for now, but the Westfalia name will.
Roadtrek Helped Build the Class B Market
To understand why this sale matters, we need to understand just how important Roadtrek once was.
The company traces its roots to 1974 and helped pioneer the modern van-sized motorhome. By the time Germany’s Erwin Hymer Group purchased Roadtrek in 2016, the company reportedly controlled around 30 percent of the North American Class B market.
Roadtrek wasn’t simply another camper-van manufacturer. It was one of the dominant brands in the category.
Then everything fell apart.
The Collapse of Erwin Hymer North America
In early 2019, Erwin Hymer Group North America announced that an internal investigation had uncovered irregularities in its financial reporting. Several managers were suspended, and an outside audit was launched.
At the same time, THOR Industries was preparing to purchase the global Erwin Hymer Group. The North American operation, including Roadtrek, was ultimately excluded from that acquisition.
Erwin Hymer Group North America entered court-ordered receivership on February 15, 2019, and its factories closed.
Court documents listed approximately $120 million Canadian in book assets and nearly $274 million Canadian owed to creditors. Around 850 employees lost their jobs, while approximately 900 creditors were reportedly affected by the collapse.
There were plenty of sensational allegations circulating at the time. The careful way to describe what is publicly established is that major financial reporting irregularities triggered an investigation, the North American company was excluded from the THOR acquisition, and the business then collapsed under an enormous debt load.
Groupe Rapido Rebuilt Roadtrek
France-based Groupe Rapido purchased substantially all of the assets associated with Roadtrek from the court-appointed receiver in 2019. The transaction received court approval that June and was expected to close in early July.
Rapido essentially had to rebuild Roadtrek from the wreckage.
Production resumed, employees returned and a new dealer network was developed. Roadtrek survived, which was far from guaranteed when its factories abruptly shut down.
But the company never returned to the scale or market dominance it enjoyed before the collapse.
Another New Chapter for Roadtrek
Conestogo Partners now becomes Roadtrek’s fourth ownership situation in roughly a decade.
There is currently little public information available about the investment group, its other holdings or its long-term plans for Roadtrek. The company has said it values Roadtrek’s dealer relationships and intends to work with those partners as it moves into its next phase.
That makes the biggest question surrounding this sale difficult to answer.
Can Conestogo provide the investment and long-term stability Roadtrek needs to become a major Class B player again? Or will this become one more chapter in the brand’s long history of ownership changes?
For now, Roadtrek is still operating, the same leadership remains in place and its existing floorplans are continuing. What happens after that will tell us much more about whether this historic RV brand can regain some of its former strength.
