Winnebago: Flying Heli-Home Campers and the Australian Name Hijacking

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Winnebago Industries grew out of a 1958 rescue effort in Forest City, Iowa, in a county named for the Ho-Chunk people, where businessman John K. Hanson and civic leaders persuaded California's Modernistic Industries to open a travel trailer factory. Five local investors including Hanson bought it, and in 1960 it became Winnebago Industries. The company made its own furniture, cabinets and metal stampings and invented the Thermo-Panel, a wall of styrofoam bonded between aluminum and wood paneling. When its first motor homes appeared in 1966, they cost about half of what competitors charged, opening RV ownership to middle-class families and retirees. Professor James B. Twitchell compared a circle of Winnebagos to the covered wagons of the Old West, and the name became a generic word for any motorhome.

The 1970s energy crisis pushed Winnebago toward smaller vehicles: the 1973 Minnie Winnie on a Dodge van chassis, the pop-top Winnie Wagon, the Renault-based LeSharo, the Volkswagen-based Rialta, and an aluminum delivery van with a Cummins diesel. Around 1982 an Australian businessman began building RVs under the Winnebago name and a near-identical logo; he ignored a 1992 settlement and registered the trademark himself in 1997. Australia's Federal Court canceled that registration, but in 2013 ruled he could keep using the name with a disclaimer because he had sold the vehicles for 32 years and the U.S. company had known for 25. Under CEO Michael Happe, who took over in 2016, Winnebago moved its headquarters to Eden Prairie, Minnesota, and bought Chris-Craft boats in 2018, Newmar in 2019 and Barletta pontoon boats for over $300 million in 2021.

• The Heli-Home, built with Orlando Helicopter Airways from surplus Sikorsky S-55 and S-58 helicopters, slept up to six; only six or seven were produced.
• German politician Guido Westerwelle campaigned in 2002 in a yellow and blue Winnebago nicknamed the Guidomobile.
• The character Gonzo lived in a Winnebago called the Titanic in the hospital lot on Trapper John, M.D.
• In 2014 the Australian company put the Winnebago name on premium models one month before the real Winnebago announced it was entering Australia.
• Winnebago opened a production center in Waverly, Iowa, in 2015 because of labor shortages in Forest City.