A family business in northern Indiana.

Jayco began in northern Indiana in 1968, when Lloyd and Bertha Bontrager set out, in the company’s words, “to make a family dream a reality in their quiet corner of Northern Indiana.” The company says Lloyd developed his own prototype camping trailer that year with a lifter system of his own design for fold-down campers. English Wikipedia dates the fold-down system to 1967 and says the business started out making trailers in two chicken houses and a barn.

The company’s own timeline gives the early steps. In January 1969 Al Yoder joined as a partner. In 1970 Jayco opened plants in Kansas and Canada to serve dealers in the west — Wikipedia names the Kansas site as Harper — and in the same year Lloyd held the first Jayco dealer seminar. In 1971 it moved into travel trailers, and in 1972 into fifth wheels, buying Three Cs, the maker of Wonderland fifth wheels in Three Rivers, Michigan. The fuel shortages of the 1970s led it to stop building motorhomes for several years and close the Kansas and Canadian plants, the company says.

Jayco returned to motorhomes with the JayMini Class C series in 1977, according to its timeline, and kept experimenting with folding designs: the Jay-Trek of 1980, a travel trailer on wagon gear, and the Jay Tiki of 1982, a tent camper whose living area flipped out of the trailer onto the ground. In 1979 it built horse-drawn trams for Mackinac Island in Michigan.

In 1985 Bertha Bontrager became chairman of the board, Al Yoder became president, and their eldest son, Wilbur, executive vice president, according to the company.

Starcraft, Jay Flight and the Middlebury campus.

The family firm grew by buying other makers. Jayco says it acquired Starcraft RV in 1991 and took the RV division under its corporate umbrella. In 1993 it introduced the Esprit, a ten-foot fold-down with bright tent fabrics, the company says; the same year Al Yoder retired as president and was succeeded by Bernard Lambright, with Wilbur Bontrager as chairman.

Middlebury became the company’s base. Jayco says it opened a customer service centre there in 1997, with a parts warehouse and service bays, and completed a new corporate headquarters in the town in 1999. Its footer today gives a Main Street address in Middlebury, a town in Elkhart County.

Two of its model names arrived at the start of the 2000s. The company says it introduced the Kiwi, a lightweight travel trailer, in 2001, and later renamed it Jay Feather; and in 2002 it launched the Jay Flight travel trailer. That year Derald Bontrager, a son of Lloyd and Bertha, became president and chief operating officer. The Eagle name, which the company says marked 25 years in 2016, sits alongside them in today’s range.

The business also spread beyond Indiana. Jayco says it opened a manufacturing plant in Twin Falls, Idaho, in 2005 to serve the western United States and Canada. In 2008 it bought the assets of the former Travel Supreme and launched Entegra Coach, a division building Class A diesel-pusher motorhomes. In 2014 it entered the gasoline Class A market with the Precept, and bought the assets of the former Open Range, renaming the division Highland Ridge RV.

In 2012 the company adopted the tag line “Generations of Family Fun,” which it describes as a brand promise to employees, dealers, suppliers and customers. Its current website groups the range by type — travel trailers, fifth wheels, toy haulers and Class A, B and C motorhomes — under names including Jay Flight, Jay Feather, Eagle, North Point, Seismic, Greyhawk, Seneca and Alante.

Elkhart County and the RV trade.

The brands in this group all build recreational vehicles: towable travel trailers and fifth wheels that hitch behind a car or truck, and motorhomes that carry their own engine. Some are family firms that still carry a founder’s name or story; others now belong to larger groups that own several RV names side by side, and a single brand can change hands more than once while keeping its badge, its model families and its home town.

An RV brand’s identity is carried by more than a logo. Model names, the lettering and graphics along a side wall, the shape and finish of the body, the brochure and the owners’ club all play a part, and a name can outlast several owners and factories. That makes a few plain questions worth asking of each one: who started it, who owns it now, and where its vehicles are actually built.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where it builds and how its names and graphics have changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

From family firm to Thor subsidiary.

Jayco remained a family-run company until 2016. On 1 July 2016 Thor Industries announced that it was buying Jayco Corp., the South Bend television station ABC57 reported that day, quoting Derald Bontrager as Jayco’s president and chief executive and Bob Martin as Thor’s. Jayco’s own timeline says the company, with its Jayco, Starcraft RV, Entegra Coach and Highland Ridge RV brands, was acquired on 1 July 2016; Thor’s history page dates the purchase to June 2016. Thor says Jayco is based in northern Indiana, with additional facilities in Idaho.

The change of owner did not change the name on the trailers. Jayco says Ken Walters, previously its vice president of sales and product development, became president in 2020, and that in 2021 Jayco, Inc. was renamed the Jayco Family of Companies to cover its four divisions: Jayco, Starcraft RV, Entegra Coach and Highland Ridge RV. Thor’s website lists Jayco among its North American RV makers, building both towable and motorized vehicles.

The name travels further than its owner. Jayco’s timeline says Jayco Australia was formed in 1975 with Gerry Ryan as one of the founding partners; that business has its own website and is a separate company from the Indiana maker.

For a design guide, Jayco shows how a family-founded trailer maker builds a recognisable family of model names — Jay Flight, Jay Feather, Jay Tiki — around one short brand name. Compare Thor Industries, the group that has owned it since 2016, and Airstream, its sister brand under the same owner. For this guide we use navy, lake blue and a sunset orange with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Jayco’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.