50 years of innovations to provide you with greater adventures

FOR THESE 50 YEARS OF SHARED PLEASURE: WE THANK YOU

To all of you, RAPIDO owners, motor home fans, employees of the
Group, our distributors and suppliers, I should like to show the pleasure
experienced in sharing these 50 years of adventures with you since the creation of the RAPIDO brand. It is with a family spirit that we have married your travel desires with our innovative ideas to develop our vehicles to serve all adventurers. From my father, Constant Rousseau, we have kept this heritage of an inviting top-of-the-line make. And we strive, every day, to communicate in each and every one of our products our attention to detail and our passion for motor homes.
The members of the RAPIDO team also use motor homes and are also constantly listening to your suggestions in order to design products that best meet your expectations.
For this special year, we are presenting a very beautiful Collection that even more than ever symbolises RAPIDO’s values.

It is therefore with the utmost sincerity that we thank you for your confi dence, your commitment, your loyalty and also for these 50 years of innovations in the service of travelling and adventure…

1961
Launch of the first RAPIDO caravan

1983
Start of production of the Randonneur 410, RAPIDO’s first motor home

1992
First RAPIDO A-class model

2010
Launch of the first RAPIDO VANS and heavy motor homes with the 10 Series

50 ansEver since its very beginnings, both in its design work and its production, RAPIDO has always brought the same care and attention to developing its products. It is this determination that, over the years, has established RAPIDO’s name and good reputation. The quest for incomparable quality remains and will always remain RAPIDO’s chief preoccupation and daily objective. It is just the same with customer satisfaction. From its origins in the cabinetmaking and carpentry industry, over time, RAPIDO has become a genuine coachbuilder, calling on the best skills in terms of research, development and design to create the external bodywork’s smiling, dynamic styling and also for the design of the interior, which retains the renowned inviting ambience and quality of finish.

RAPIDO’s success is also the success of a whole team. A taste for a challenge, where every company employee has very exacting standards. From its beginnings with a folding caravan for use by the general public, RAPIDO has raised itself to a leading position, becoming the recognised manufacturer of top-of-the-range vehicles throughout Europe. With 50 years of experience to draw on, RAPIDO is always capable of constantly developing, changing and progressing.
RAPIDO was born from the creative mind of Constant Rousseau: in 1961, for his own holidays, he invented and manufactured a canvas folding caravan, resting on a chassis, which could serve as a trailer the rest of the year. Over the space of 30 years, 34,900 units of this innovative model would be produced, with half of them going to export. By perfecting itself from year to year, the folding caravan continued to fascinate and received several awards for its ingenuity, among them 1st Prize in the Lépine competition, the Gold Medal of the City of Paris and the award presented by the President of the French Republic. It also received awards in Belgium, with the Grand Prize and the Gold Medal at the International Inventors’ Fair.

Pierre Rousseau joined the company in 1976 to work with his father. Very quickly, he thought of designing motor homes. The fi rst model left the factory in 1983: this was the Randonneur 410.
Pierre Rousseau took over management of the company in 1985, on the disappearance of his father. 1987 represented a real turning point for RAPIDO: the company launched a general range of motor homes, thereby entering for the fi rst time into the thick of the market and the competition. RAPIDO then produced low-profi le (7 Series) and luton models (8 Series) and, a little later, a range of A-class models (9 Series).

Nowadays, the catalogue is published in 9 different languages and almost half the production is exported.
Times have changed, but the same philosophy still applies: the desire to do good work.

The 50-year history book

50 ans Rapido

This book emotionally traces the family company’s complete history, from the fi rst moments of creative genius to the ultimate rewards. You also can live and relive these 50 years of innovation designed to provide you with greater adventures, by ordering the book from our website, www.rapido.fr

2011, a year studded with events

RAPIDO officially inaugurated the new factory in Mayenne on 8th April last. This gave the county’s representatives and business people the chance to find out about motor home manufacture. This inauguration was also an opportunity to view the lip dub* that the employees have tried to celebrate their company’s 50 years of existence.
For this anniversary year, the muchawaited RAPIDO Convention was held in Saint-Malo on 30th June and 1st July 2011. To celebrate its 50 years of existence and present a pre-view of its new Collection to its French and European distributor network, RAPIDO wished for nothing less than a magical location, synonymous with adventure and voyages, with a wealth of history and a prestigious past. The choice therefore fell on Saint-Malo, home town of the explorer Jacques Cartier, and a city turned towards the open sea. The participants discovered many new things in the 2012 Collection there, including the “Anniversary” models.

(*lip dub: a video clip produced (playback) by employees within the professional environment. The clip can be found on our website, www.rapido. fr using the password: “RAPIDO50ANS”)

The “Anniversary” Models:

The 2012 Collection includes 5 “Anniversary” models, specially equipped to highlight this particular year - the 791FF AL-KO, the 9090dF, the 9092dF, the 10001 and the 990MHV. All these models benefi t from RAPIDO refi nements: ambient lighting, exclusive materials and comfortable furnishings and equipment.