Every Concept2 Indoor Rower, Model A to RowErg

Almost nobody arrives at this question idly. You are looking at a secondhand listing that says “Concept 2 rower, barely used” with no model named, or you have inherited a machine and want to know whether parts still exist for it, or you are trying to work out why one erg costs $300 and an apparently identical one costs $990. All three answers start in the same place: Concept2 publishes the production run of every indoor rower it has ever built, on its own service pages, and that list is the shortest route to knowing what you are looking at.

Here is the whole run, in Concept2’s own words and dates:

• Model A Indoor Rower — 1981–1986
• Model B Indoor Rower — 1986–1993
• Model C Indoor Rower — 1993–July 2003
• Model D Indoor Rower — July 2003–April 2021
• Model E Indoor Rower — August 2006–January 2021
• Dynamic RowErg — November 2010 to present
• RowErg — April 2021 to present

Two things in that list trip people up constantly. The Model D and Model E overlapped for fifteen years — they are not sequential generations, they are two heights of the same idea sold side by side. And the RowErg is not a new machine: Concept2 states that the Model D was renamed the RowErg in April 2021. If a seller tells you their 2019 Model D is “the generation before the RowErg,” they are describing a name change as though it were an engineering change.

Model A, 1981–1986

The original, and the machine that created the category. You will almost never meet one, and if you do it is a curiosity rather than a purchase. Concept2 still lists a service page for it and still sells a handle retrofit kit specific to the Model A, which tells you more about the company than any marketing line could. If you own one and want it rowable, the realistic path is the handle kit plus a monitor retrofit, not a search for original parts.

Model B, 1986–1993

The first Concept2 most people have actually seen, usually in the back of a boathouse. Concept2 publishes the identification marks: a wood handle, wood footboards, a flywheel housing that is a “black wire cage similar to household fan enclosure,” and two sprockets with 13 and 15 teeth. The serial number is “generally located under right or left footboard.” If a listing photo shows a wire cage over the fan, you are looking at a Model B and you should price it as a thirty-five-year-old machine.

Model C, 1993–July 2003

The decade-long middle generation, and the oldest Concept2 that is still a sensible buy. Concept2 publishes the tells: gray and black, a wood handle with black grips, a lever on the side of the flywheel numbered 1 to 10, and plastic foot stretchers. The serial label sits “between the V of the flywheel support legs, on the bottom of the rower,” and the number encodes the date the machine was boxed.

The Model C matters because it is the oldest frame Concept2 still supports with the two retrofits that modernize a machine: it names the Model C among the frames the Tall Legs Retrofit Kit fits, and the PM5 is “retrofittable to all older Concept2 Indoor Rowers.” A cheap Model C plus a monitor is a real, current-feeling erg. Whether that arithmetic works is a question of the asking price, and how to value a used rower from the live new price is the method.

Model D, July 2003–April 2021 (now the RowErg)

The machine that made indoor rowing ordinary, and the single most common Concept2 on the used market by a wide margin. Eighteen years of production means a lot of variation, and Concept2 publishes enough to date one from a photograph:

• Blue and light blue — July 2003 to August 2006
• Gray and light blue — August 2006 to late July 2012
• Light gray — late July 2012 to January 2021
• Black — late July 2012 to April 2021

Concept2 also records an August 2006 update that changed the monorail artwork, the foot stretchers and the frame lock mechanism, and names the Model D’s identifying features as an ergonomic handle with a 10-degree bend and damper setting numbers molded into the flywheel cover. The serial label moved: before 17 October 2005 it is on the underside between the V of the flywheel support legs; from 17 October 2005 to April 2021 it is on the left side of the flywheel housing.

The thing that actually decides a Model D’s value is not the color. It is the screen. A pre-2014 machine almost certainly has a PM3 or a PM4, and Concept2’s free ErgData app is “compatible with the PM5 only.” The PM3-versus-PM5 comparison works that through, including what the retrofit costs. If the frame is the part you care about, RowErg versus Model D is the page about whether anything mechanical changed at all.

Model E, August 2006–January 2021

Not a successor to the Model D — a parallel machine with a taller frame. Concept2 publishes the number that is the entire point of it: the seat sits “20 inches from the floor,” against 14 inches on a standard-leg Model D or RowErg. The monitor arm is fixed rather than swinging, and the colors Concept2 lists are light gray, or black for units built from late September 2015 through January 2021.

Six inches of seat height is not a comfort upgrade; it is the difference between standing up off a machine and pushing yourself up off the floor. If that is why you are reading this, the Model E is discontinued but the capability is not — Concept2 sells the RowErg with tall legs, which publishes the same 20-inch seat, and names a Tall Legs Retrofit Kit for the Model C, Model D and RowErg that raises the seat six inches. The machines ranked on published seat height is the page for this problem across every brand.

Dynamic RowErg, November 2010 to present

The one Concept2 that is genuinely a different machine rather than a different height. Concept2’s service index lists the Dynamic RowErg as in production from November 2010 to the present, and sells it alongside the standard RowErg. It is built for crews who want the stroke to feel closer to moving a boat rather than moving a seat.

We are not going to publish specifications for it, because Concept2 does not put them where it puts the RowErg’s. Its public comparison page covers the RowErg only — seat height, footprint, stored dimensions, machine weight, user limit — and says nothing about the Dynamic. Rather than fill that gap with a figure from somewhere else, we will say plainly that the figures are not published in the same place and leave it there. What full-motion rowing actually changes about the stroke is a separate question, and the full-motion explainer answers it.

RowErg, April 2021 to present

The current machine, and the Model D under a new name. Concept2 publishes the figures on its comparison page: a 14-inch seat on standard legs or 20 inches on tall legs, 96 inches long and 24 inches wide in use, a recommended 9 ft by 4 ft of space with clearance, stored dimensions of 25 x 33 x 54 inches, a 57 lb frame, and a 500 lb maximum user weight as tested by Concept2 — with a separate 300 lb figure under the EN 20957-7 standard. It ships with a PM5. The direct price on that page was $990.00 when we read it on 20 October 2026.

Those are the numbers that make the used market worth thinking about at all. A machine whose frame has not meaningfully changed since 2003, whose parts are still sold, and whose monitor can be retrofitted, is a machine where buying a twelve-year-old example is a legitimate strategy rather than a gamble. What to check before money changes hands is the inspection list, and used versus new is the decision laid out with the costs in it.

How to identify a machine from a listing in four steps

1. Look at the flywheel housing. A black wire cage is a Model B. Molded damper numbers on the cover put you in Model C territory or later.
2. Look at the handle. Wood means Model A, B or C. The bent plastic ergonomic handle means Model D, E or RowErg.
3. Look at the color. Blue is 2003–2006. Gray with light blue is 2006–2012. Plain light gray or black is 2012 onward.
4. Look at the screen, then ask for the date code. This is the one that changes the price. On a PM3, Concept2 puts the date code under Main Menu > More Options > Utilities > Product ID, where the last four digits are the year and the digits before them are the day of the year — and notes that the date code, serial number and hardware version do not change when firmware is updated.

If the seller cannot or will not do step four, treat the machine as a PM3 and price it accordingly. That is not cynicism; it is just what the published availability dates imply about a machine nobody can date.

What we cannot tell you

Three honest gaps. Concept2 does not publish seat heights, dimensions or weights for the Model A, B, C or D on its service pages — those pages are about identification and support, not specification — so the only published dimensional figures on this page are the RowErg’s and the Model E’s 20-inch seat. Concept2 does not publish production years for the monitors themselves, only the years each one shipped as standard on a named machine. And we have not rowed any of these frames side by side. Nobody here has a lab; this page is Concept2’s own documentation, organized, with every source listed below.