About Coastline Manufacturing Co
Built on a notepad, sold on a handshake.
Mitch Schliebs has been designing and building protective covers for RV travelers since the late 1990s. This is the story.
A vendor at the RVIA show with a shirt-pocket notepad.
Coastline Manufacturing Co began by designing and making unique protective covers for RV travelers in the late 1990s. I was a vendor at the 10-day RVIA show in Pomona, CA where up to 50,000 people walked the aisles. We offered step mats screen printed with clever slogans and spare tire covers imprinted with popular designs. Both were in great demand in that bygone era.
Always mindful of an ever-changing market, keeping an open mind to far-fetched ideas and simple requests, my trusty shirt pocket note pad began to fill with requests over those show days. The most common request — pleading by some folks — was to create an effective protective cover for vehicles towed behind motor homes. That was a head scratcher, for sure.
The first order of business was to think about it, a lot, and then collect every US patent granted for that purpose back to the second decade of the 1900s. I still have them.
Trial and error
The Tow Car Shield was created through trial and error over time.
Advertised in RV West magazine to the eleven western states, potential customers were invited to call and share their ideas and experiences with this concept. And they did call, and we talked. Many volunteered their cars for the early trials.
Every Tow Car Shield sold, from the beginning, includes a 30-day trial and a lifetime free repair or replacement warranty. It was important to instill confidence in the customer and to learn from returned product.
Where we are today
From dealer floors to customer-direct.
Pretty soon Camping World and many dealers across the US and Canada were on board and production went into overtime. After the big financial crunch hit, we began selling customer direct.
— Mitch Schliebs
