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Weiger also enlivened Midas' sleepy travel-trailer business, which the company acquired in 1965. The fuel crisis that followed the 1973 Arab oil embargo dealt recreational-vehicle sales a heavy blow, but Weiger took advantage of the downturn to mass-purchase chassis and their components. When the shortage passed, Weiger opened a 130,000-sq.-ft. manufacturing and assembly operation in Elkhart, Ind. He promoted the star of Midas' 30-model trailer, camper and motor-home lineup: the Midas mini-motor home, known as a Chopped Van. Midas buys the cab and chassis of a GM, Ford or Dodge van, then builds on an insulated aluminum and wood body complete with tub, shower, refrigerator, stove, beds and other amenities. Selling price: $12,000. Midas' sales of recreational vehicles jumped from $60 million in 1975 to $106 million in 1976. That is more than half the figure for the giant of the motor-home business, Winnebago Industries.
Weiger now boasts that with its new product balance, Midas-International can hardly lose whether the economy goes up or down. If times are hard, he says, people fix up their old cars and replace the mufflers. If the economy booms, so do sales of Chopped Vans. Still, Weiger is not satisfied. "We see the ordinary customer only a couple of years after he buys his car," he laments. "That's not soon enough. We'd like to sell him shock absorbers and other things." The company is now also operating three self-service gas stations. The Midas touch, it seems, is still there. One station pumped 115,000 gal. in its first month, almost four times as much as the average brand station.