Wife and I were at the Caravan and Camping show here in Adelaide last sat and I was chatting with one of the Jayco guys , who works at their Vic. factory and said that if a van was ordered today it wouldn't be delivered until at least Jan next year. They are at their capacity in production now and still can't keep up with demand.
I think that the baby boomers are at / nearing retirement and are adding extra extra pressure on all caravan manufacturers to produce their getaway dream.

Codes

We went to the caravan show in Adelaide last year and bought one off the floor, only waited till the cheque cleared,

All the above is true, they do runs of different models at one time. We were lucky enough to find exactly the right model at the recent sale in Brisbane at the EKKA, Jayco Discovery shower/toilet model took delivery on the 5/11/10. You can be lucky sometimes, caravaning since 1978!

we had ours custom made by paramount ordered end of june for delivery end of september ,it came in two weeks early all finished to perfection

we found that nothing was to much trouble for them to try to accomodate us

Yes waiting lists are long, we have just ordered a new 19' Lotus Sprint and delivery is to be April 2011.
In my previous life, before I retired, as an Engineering Trade Trainer I visited a number of caravan manufactures, and the manufacturing process is very much hands on production, where the car manufacturing is very much a robotic production line, if the caravan industry every goes that way there will need to be a major investment in their industry.
I guess the other major issue for waiting lists is the number of people retiring and realising what a good life this caravanning life style and order vans.

Ray & Bev