Princess Factory visit by Aquaholic

[henryf]

Ah the memories. Having ordered our F55 this time in 2021 at the boat show we had several visits to the factory in 2022 prior to a final trip in 2023 to take delivery.

I listen carefully to comments from @jfm. He understands the numbers behind business and has a particular passion for boats. Probably the perfect person to run a yard. He’s also a customer who has put his money where his mouth is.

My understanding from the 2023 purchase of Princess was that the new owner was someone familiar with building things - I think they acquired Briggs & Stratton engines for instance. Of course building a massive boat is very different to a standardised engine which can be easily cost engineered and broken down into component and task elements.

I believe the new owners have spent 8 months or so looking and observing and are now starting to make changes. Whether they take a ground up JFM approach is yet to be seen.

Princess are definitely not semi custom. You choose from a series of standard options and what finishes from a selection are used throughout the boat. But you can’t be moving rooms around and so on. For me that’s perfect. For JFM it would be a nightmare

I would love to see Princess bring costs down and turn a nice profit. Lower costs means more affordable boats….

 

[Tranona]

Hell, I remember that show.

Wisely they ignored him, which is probably why you can still buy a Morgan today.

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They did not ignore him as Charles explained. The quality of the cars improved massively in those 10 years and as he said output increased by over 50% by the early 2000s without any really significant capital investment. They were very wise to be cautious as the Aero 8 was not a success in terms of volume and the loss of the Rover V8 engine in 2002 meant they could not sell all the traditional cars they could make and waiting lists disappeared. Worked in my favour as I was able to buy a new 4/4 from stock at a price that still feels like the bargain of the century. What kept them going through the 2000s was the shift to semi custom building of cars based on the Aero 8 design and a constant stream of special edition models of the traditional design reflecting in part a lack of consistent supply of engines from Ford. A sideline in 3 wheelers helped until again engine supplies ran out.

Of course now all changed again with a sale to an Italian company and a complete new line of cars using the Aero 8 aluminium frame architecture and BMW running gear for 4 wheelers and a Ford engined 3 wheeler. However now in a very different market with the entry level 4 cylinder model more than 3 times the price I paid for mine and 40% more than the last of the old style cars.

Went past the factory last month and not a lot has changed externally except it is all now clean and tidy and there is an impressive new showroom where there used to be storage for old unused bits and pieces.

 

[doug748]

They did not ignore him as Charles explained. The quality of the cars improved massively in those 10 years and as he said output increased by over 50% by the early 2000s without any really significant capital investment. They were very wise to be cautious as the Aero 8 was not a success in terms of volume and the loss of the Rover V8 engine in 2002 meant they could not sell all the traditional cars they could make and waiting lists disappeared. Worked in my favour as I was able to buy a new 4/4 from stock at a price that still feels like the bargain of the century. What kept them going through the 2000s was the shift to semi custom building of cars based on the Aero 8 design and a constant stream of special edition models of the traditional design reflecting in part a lack of consistent supply of engines from Ford. A sideline in 3 wheelers helped until again engine supplies ran out.

Of course now all changed again with a sale to an Italian company and a complete new line of cars using the Aero 8 aluminium frame architecture and BMW running gear for 4 wheelers and a Ford engined 3 wheeler. However now in a very different market with the entry level 4 cylinder model more than 3 times the price I paid for mine and 40% more than the last of the old style cars.

Went past the factory last month and not a lot has changed externally except it is all now clean and tidy and there is an impressive new showroom where there used to be storage for old unused bits and pieces.

Well Jones said he considered the case his biggest failure, praise the Lord. One thing you are correct about, they were and remain a great bargain.

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[Portofino]

Age demographics are working against Morgan and in some lesser ways Princess . Today’s young folk interested in those brands is shrinking. Bit like golf clubs et al .

 

[Tranona]

Well Jones said he considered the case his biggest failure, praise the Lord. One thing you are correct about, they were and remain a great bargain.

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That was more playing to the gallery. He was miffed they did not adopt his rather radical ideas which would have been a disaster but quietly went about making incremental improvements in both the products and processes. We did the factory tour in 2004 and what was most striking was the contrast between the traditional cars and the state of the art Aero with its aluminium monocoque (and token bits of ash in the body framing). The pallets of BMW V8s was also impressive. If I had a wider garage I probably would have bought an Aero8 in around 2007 when the early ones were at rock bottom. Another opportunity was 2015 when the last Aero8 iteration came in at a bargain price of £100k (same as the Bavaria I bought that year). Only 100 built and they just about doubled in price during covid days, although have fallen back since. Still happy with mine - had a lovely drive out in the Dorset lanes yesterday.

 

[doug748]

100%. I think your mate Charles is no mug and neither was his father. Sharpening up the factory and production was a no brainer which they probably had in hand, as was the use of hand power tools etc.

I have an inkling they knew the exposure would fill their order books for years.
I also suspect they knew that introducing new technology very slowly has distinct advantages; you let others run down the rabbit holes first. CAD was a time consuming white elephant for 10 years and CADCAM is a high cost adventure unsuited to low volume production - unless you let others take the capital risk and subcontract, as they did with the explosive formed front wings and laser cut panels.

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[John100156]

Everyone seems to be concentrating on the pecuniary aspects of Princess business, of course a genuine concern of shareholders/investors and perhaps even the longevity of the brand.

I enjoyed the videos, it’s great to see so many skilled people long term employed, they are training-up youngsters and the quality still seems to be good, old technology or not - long may that continue.

We have lost enough manufacturing skills in the UK. So a from me to Princess - well I would say that with one of their boats and no financial connections.

I expect to be battered for saying this!

 

[LBRodders]

I enjoyed it - easy watching. My Burnham word bingo choice is 'fantastic'!

After all, I am never going to get a look around because I am buying a new boat.

Maybe naively, but during boat tours I was always impressed when the the guide described the matching grain on cabinetry. I imagined artisan carpenters, pencil behind the ear, choosing hard woods with a magnifying glass - but now disappointingly I understand its is all CnC'd MDF [or similar] with veneer! More fool me.

 

[henryf]

I enjoyed it - easy watching. My Burnham word bingo choice is 'fantastic'!

After all, I am never going to get a look around because I am buying a new boat.

Maybe naively, but during boat tours I was always impressed when the the guide described the matching grain on cabinetry. I imagined artisan carpenters, pencil behind the ear, choosing hard woods with a magnifying glass - but now disappointingly I understand its is all CnC'd MDF [or similar] with veneer! More fool me.

To some extent it is but that’s not a bad thing. Flat panels of solid timber would bend like a banana.

There is however a lot of solid hardwood used for edging and shaped pieces. Everything is colour matched. There is still skill involved.

 

[roa312]

Part 3:

 

[MapisM]

Flat panels of solid timber would bend like a banana.

Actually, it's perfectly feasible to make flat panels out of solid wood (by using crossed layers of it, in a nutshell) that don't bend.
BUT, there are other good reasons for not using solid wood in flat panels - like weight, first and foremost.
Besides, it's not like veneered sandwich panels are less expensive than solid wood, nor less "solid" - if well done.
So, in contrast with several other things visible in the video, I wouldn't put that down as corner cutting for cost reasons.

 

[jfm]

Absolutely. There is nothing inferior about veneer, and nothing superior about solid wood. It depends on the precise use of the wood in question. The finest furniture in the world will typically include veneered parts. Anyone who applied a principle of using only solid wood and not veneer would be making inferior furniture,

All that said, Princess furniture is very pedestrian. It does the job well, but it is far from high end. That's one of their problems as they contemplate bigger boats, but they seem unable to see it and they seem to believe their furniture is great.

 

[Martxer]

Perhaps bringing the manufacture of masking tape in house may help them turn a profit.

 

[jbweston]

Is the new video less less full of WOW!s? If so I might be able to watch it.

 

[benjenbav]

I don’t know much about manufacturing but I was surprised at how much inventory was lying around. Financing that, doing almost everything in house, plus the massively wasteful real estate that they seem to have must create all sorts of issues.

I’d guess that Princess probably wouldn’t do it as they do if they were starting from scratch. The difficulty for them must be how to transition from where they are to where they’d perhaps like to be.

 

[stelican]

I don’t know much about manufacturing but I was surprised at how much inventory was lying around. Financing that, doing almost everything in house, plus the massively wasteful real estate that they seem to have must create all sorts of issues.

I’d guess that Princess probably wouldn’t do it as they do if they were starting from scratch. The difficulty for them must be how to transition from where they are to where they’d perhaps like to be.

A lot of the inventory will be on extended credit.
In the past I understand that Volvo Penta did not seek payment until factory gate.

 

[jbweston]

2 minutes 54 seconds in before the first WOW!

 

[doug748]

I don’t know much about manufacturing but I was surprised at how much inventory was lying around. Financing that, doing almost everything in house, plus the massively wasteful real estate that they seem to have must create all sorts of issues.

I’d guess that Princess probably wouldn’t do it as they do if they were starting from scratch. The difficulty for them must be how to transition from where they are to where they’d perhaps like to be.

Maybe they need to bring in management consultants but there is a good chance they would either improve things somewhat or bankrupt them. : -)

I see your point but you can't get much more diffuse real estate and construction chain than Airbus. I recall the company being set up and the derision and, I believe, actual laughter from Boeing. As Airbus order book approaches twice that across the Atlantic, not much jollity is Seattle now.

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[roa312]

Last episode in the series:

Here's a recent walkthrough of the flagship Princess X95, built in 2023 and already for sale.

 

[Hurricane]

At 10:10 in the last video, there is a good view of Pont Aven (Brittany Ferries) ferry that we use to "drive" out to Spain. Indeed, we were loading onto the Pont Avon ferry last week. We had a very comfortable flat sea overnight cruise to Santander before a 7 hour drive down to our Princess.