Lee, thank you for the work you are doing on the history of Barth.

Yeah Bill, when I first embarked on this little project I recalled your post about the whereabouts of Bill Prinz, and thought about starting there.

But I wanted to make contact with folks from the heady-days of Barth, when the company was churning out coaches and working against a back-order log....When times were vibrant & bustling....After all, most of our coaches came from that era........

From what I've been able to find out, the Prinz regime came in when the company was moribund, the assets had already been seized by the creditors and revival attempts were chancy at best. Prinz & associates came from the SOB faction of the RV industry, and I'm not sure that their "Fleetwood mindset" truly represents Barth's Good-Ole-Days. ('Course, if anyone out there is driving around in a trolley, the Prinz era is spot on

That said, I should follow-up on the Prinz connection too - maybe there's some contact possibilities there.....

The biggest obstacle in locating former Barth folks is that Time-Marches-On....Many of the key players are now gone, and those that remain are now in their mid-70's to mid-80's plus. (a 55 year old Barth employee in 1985 is 78 years old today!

I'll keep plugging away....I'm working on one contact now.....maybe we'll luck out......

I would think that Bill Prinz & associates would be low on our list for the reasons mention above... Of course, that doesn't mean I would kick them to the curb, they still might have some valuable information.

I certainly agree that he might be low on the list but I'm curious if he might have information to help us figure out some things we're not sure about. Or, maybe he knows someone who can provide additional information. I've thought about contacting him but felt I had better discuss it here first.

I've always wondered, did he come into Barth with the intent of raiding what was left or was he trying to make an honest go of it.

Lee,
Drop me a private e-mail, as dad might have some contacts for you for your 2009 GTG. He stayed in touch with Mike after leaving Barth, and was instrumental in the transition years of the 1970's. He is now living in South Bend.

Bart

In the chat room the other night someone asked if there had ever been a come back try for the Barth brand. I thought I remembered reading about a comeback in 2001 but wasn't sure. Well it took awhile but I finally found the news release.

RVBusiness, dated November 15, 2000.

The comeback was called off on April 11, 2001

Nick