ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, July 21, 1996 TAG: 9607220001
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-16 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: SHAWSVILLE
SOURCE: ANGIE WATTS STAFF WRITER
The sign outside the old garage reads, "Sawyer's RV's & Bus Sales: Built to Last, Not to Leak."
It's a simple slogan for a specialized business. These motor homes aren't just built to last, they're built to provide all the luxuries of home.
Televisions, radios, telephones, refrigerator/freezers, heating, air conditioning, beds, showers, sinks and coffee pots. Those are just the standard features. There are vacuum systems, VCRs, CD players, leather seats and couches, trash compactors, gas stoves, curling irons, hair dryers, bunk beds, lighted mirrors and intercom systems.
"We build them any way somebody wants them," owner Howard Sawyers said. "We can make it just like a house. If you're going to travel, then this is the only way to go."
Increasingly, gospel and country music groups, along with other bands, journeymen travelers and campers alike, are discovering luxury motor homes. It's more than the inside comforts that draw the music groups; it's the showmanship of the buses, which provide a stage in itself for the musicians.
One of the features Sawyers has on his own bus is a raised guitar-shaped mirror on the ceiling just inside the door. Around the mirror is a fiber-optic cable that transfers light from a colorgel, changing from blue to green to red.
"At night it's real bright, which the entertainers love," Sawyers said. "For a musician, when you pull up to a coliseum and open the doors you've got to look good for the fans waiting outside."
There is also the fancy artwork on the side and the rear of the bus. Sawyers said the buses usually are sent to North Carolina for the side painting, because few businesses have paint booths big enough to hold a 40-foot bus. From there the buses are returned to Sawyers and Bill Hegarty of ABC Signs in Blue Ridge does the airbrushed artwork on the back of the buses.
"I do the artwork, the customer is the art director," Hegarty said. "I'll put whatever they want on the back of the bus whether is copying a photograph of their dog or taking a scene from a calendar. One time I held a 15-pound statue in my left hand and airbrushed the image onto the bus with my right hand. Of course I'll change the artwork a little bit, but to the customer it usually is 100 percent of what they want."
With satisfaction seemingly guaranteed, Sawyers said he is always busy.
"I'm overloaded with work, but everybody in this business is," Sawyers said. "There's not a lot of competition in this business because there's not that many of us. We have no market in Virginia, but I've got more market elsewhere than I'll ever fill in a lifetime."
Sawyers has lived in Shawsville for 24 years, working originally as a construction worker building houses. It was here that he learned not only how to build but also to do plumbing and electrical wiring.
"I built and remodeled homes and used this as sort of a sideline job at first," Sawyers said. "My first conversion was about 15 years ago, but I didn't fully start into it until 1988."
His first conversion was done out of personal necessity - make that personal convenience. Sawyers is a member of Carpenter's Tools Gospel group along with his wife, Donna, and three others. They traveled in an old school bus up and down the East Coast, making trips to and from the Grand Ole Opry and other sites, prompting Sawyers to make the school bus his first conversion attempt.
The innovation - and the business - have been booming since.
Sawyers runs a family-oriented business, employing his wife and her sister, Joyce Woods, as secretaries. His two nephews, Dan and Joe Woods, and longtime family friend Tate Bradford, help build the buses. These six people work from dawn till dusk on a daily basis to fill their mounting orders.
"Business has spread just by word of mouth," Sawyers said. "When you do good work it tells on you, and we do pretty good work. These boys have learned and they do all right for young kids - even if they are my family. Everybody knows us from here to California."
And while that may sound like an exaggeration for a business located at the bottom of the mountain in Shawsville, it's not.
Warner Brothers of Hollywood contacted Sawyers recently about a Silver Eagle bus he has sitting on his gravel lot. The company is making a film about Selena, a grammy-winning singer from Texas who was killed by an obsessed fan, and wants to use the Silver Eagle as a replica of her tour bus. Sawyers said the Silver Eagle is the most popular bus for entertainers.
So how much does one of these fully equipped motor homes run? That depends on whether the bus is new or used, and on just how extravagant the travelers want the interior. In addition, all of the buses are equipped with safety features to monitor the fresh water, sewage and generators, which can be a little pricey.
Sawyers said a used shell costs about $32,000 and a new shell may go for $215,000-$225,000. Add to that the cost of the conversion. He estimates that upon completion most conversions employing a used shell will cost $150,000. The new shells can run as high as $500,000 when it's all said and done. A full conversion takes three to four months to complete.
"We travel - that's the reason we know what people want," Sawyers said. "A lot of people who do conversion don't travel themselves. But we've been on the buses and we know how to work out all the kinks that will aggravate you to death.
"Once the work is done we actually take the customers out and show them how to drive for a day or two, or we go camping with them to show them how everything works. We'll be their family for a while because we don't want anything to happen out on the road.
"But once you drive one you'll never go back to driving anything else," Sawyers said. "They drive just like a Cadillac."
LENGTH: Long : 128 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ALAN KIM/Staff. 1. Behind Howard Sawyer, owner ofby CNBSawyer's RVs & Bus Sales, is his custom coach based on a 1984 Silver
Eagle bus. The bus is used as a demo and as a tour bus for his
Carpenter's Tools gospel group (ran on NRV-1). 2. Donna Sawyer
relaxes inside the family's custom converted 1984 Silver Eagle that
is used for demonstrations and touring. 3. A 1962 Golden Eagle sits
on Sawyer's lot waiting to be transformed into a prop for a Warner
Brothers' film about Selena, the late Mexican pop singer. Only the
exterior will be used to depict the run-down bus Selena's band used
when first starting out. 4. A bus can be custom equipped with most
anything a customer wants and can afford. This bus includes a
monitor for fresh and waste water and the electric system (lower
left), and a thermostat to control two air-conditioning units (top).
5. A new Kubota disel generator strong "enough to power a
mini-mall", says Sawyer, resides next to the main engine, usually a
Detroit Diesel. They share the same fuel tank, which holds about 150
gallons. color. 6. A propane-powered 1978 Gillig sits along side
several Silver Eagles, all ready for customers to have them
converted into custom coaches. This Gillig was driven from
California by a New Jersey family who happened upon Sawyer's garage
while traveling. The family, needing a larger motor home, traded for
a 1983 Silver Eagle. 7. Howard Sawyer tests a wheelchair lift on a
1983 Silver Eagle he's been converting. The interior features
motorized ceiling tracks and lifts for moving the owner from the bed
to a swiveling armchair in the front.