Jim Rosenthal
Supporter
Several months ago I was contacted by Jay Cushman of Cushman Competition, who wanted to sell me parts to complete my GT40 project. Jay owns a number of original bits, or bits taken off original cars, at any rate, and was making copies of them. Some of these items were things I needed for 1149. One thing Jay offered to do was complete the pedal box assembly- I had only the castings and needed quite a few other things to make the pedal assembly work.
My dealings with Jay have been a decidedly mixed bag. Jay does know a lot about GT40s and some of the things he has supplied to me have been fine- the rear sway bar, for example. But the pedal box is STILL incomplete after months, although it has a lot more on it than it did. I finally took the box down the street to a machinist to have the balance bar bushing made up- the one that Jay promised me not more than four or five times and that I never got. For the pedal box, Jay also owes me the captive nut strips that help anchor the pedal assembly to the top of the footbox, the dead pedal/footrest which I am sure I will never see, and so on. For the sway bars, he owes me the plastic bushings which go inside the aluminum pivot blocks that mount the sway bars. So the bottom line on Jay is that after MANY phone calls and emails (all of the most recent ones unanswered, by the way), I have some of the pieces I need to complete various parts of the car- but hardly anything that was sent to me complete. Some of the parts that Jay sent me I haven't used yet, like the window hinge assemblies, so I don't know whether I have everything that I need to make them work. If the past is prologue, I'm sure I am in for fresh frustrations as I figure out what he left out and what I will need to get from other sources to make all this stuff go together and do what it's intended to do.
Jay is also immune to any criticism. Excuses abound (he's traveling, he's racing, he's photographing GT40s, etc etc). Lectures also abound (1149 isn't original, the front uprights look terrible, etc) Note that this is someone who approached ME- I didn't come to him asking for parts: he emailed ME asking to sell me parts to go on this project. And while I am glad that things have moved along a bit, a realistic assessment is exactly that- things have moved along a bit- and the amount of effort and time I have put into getting these pieces is staggering.
As I've posted before, the quality of what Jay does is good. (some of the photos he's posted are of my car's stuff) Since the car isn't running yet, we don't know know how well this stuff WORKS- we do know that it LOOKS good and for the most part, it fits. We also know that Jay is difficult to deal with, unreliable about getting stuff to you and returning calls and emails, very prone indeed to tiresome lecturing about GT40s, and kind of a prima donna. So, once again, I got less than I paid for. After spending considerable money with a vendor who sought my business, and getting less than I ought to have gotten, things have moved along a bit, but not as far as they should have moved, and overall the experience has not been a good one.
Yelling and screaming about this sort of thing isn't my style. Those of you who know me are aware that I'm a fairly patient guy and that it takes a long time to get me to this sort of level of pique. I also try to be publicly appreciative of those folks who are helping me along the difficult and long path of trying to create a 1960's Ford race car from scratch. So this is a mixed review of Jay, to say the least- a lot put in on my part, quite a bit less gotten out, and generally an experience that started out with a lot of promises and ended up as far less than it ought to have been. Keep this in mind, everyone, when you hear similar promises from the same source. I am interested to hear if anyone else has had similar problems; do the parts work, do they fit, has your customer experience been better.worse than mine?
Jim Rosenthal
Annapolis, MD
My dealings with Jay have been a decidedly mixed bag. Jay does know a lot about GT40s and some of the things he has supplied to me have been fine- the rear sway bar, for example. But the pedal box is STILL incomplete after months, although it has a lot more on it than it did. I finally took the box down the street to a machinist to have the balance bar bushing made up- the one that Jay promised me not more than four or five times and that I never got. For the pedal box, Jay also owes me the captive nut strips that help anchor the pedal assembly to the top of the footbox, the dead pedal/footrest which I am sure I will never see, and so on. For the sway bars, he owes me the plastic bushings which go inside the aluminum pivot blocks that mount the sway bars. So the bottom line on Jay is that after MANY phone calls and emails (all of the most recent ones unanswered, by the way), I have some of the pieces I need to complete various parts of the car- but hardly anything that was sent to me complete. Some of the parts that Jay sent me I haven't used yet, like the window hinge assemblies, so I don't know whether I have everything that I need to make them work. If the past is prologue, I'm sure I am in for fresh frustrations as I figure out what he left out and what I will need to get from other sources to make all this stuff go together and do what it's intended to do.
Jay is also immune to any criticism. Excuses abound (he's traveling, he's racing, he's photographing GT40s, etc etc). Lectures also abound (1149 isn't original, the front uprights look terrible, etc) Note that this is someone who approached ME- I didn't come to him asking for parts: he emailed ME asking to sell me parts to go on this project. And while I am glad that things have moved along a bit, a realistic assessment is exactly that- things have moved along a bit- and the amount of effort and time I have put into getting these pieces is staggering.
As I've posted before, the quality of what Jay does is good. (some of the photos he's posted are of my car's stuff) Since the car isn't running yet, we don't know know how well this stuff WORKS- we do know that it LOOKS good and for the most part, it fits. We also know that Jay is difficult to deal with, unreliable about getting stuff to you and returning calls and emails, very prone indeed to tiresome lecturing about GT40s, and kind of a prima donna. So, once again, I got less than I paid for. After spending considerable money with a vendor who sought my business, and getting less than I ought to have gotten, things have moved along a bit, but not as far as they should have moved, and overall the experience has not been a good one.
Yelling and screaming about this sort of thing isn't my style. Those of you who know me are aware that I'm a fairly patient guy and that it takes a long time to get me to this sort of level of pique. I also try to be publicly appreciative of those folks who are helping me along the difficult and long path of trying to create a 1960's Ford race car from scratch. So this is a mixed review of Jay, to say the least- a lot put in on my part, quite a bit less gotten out, and generally an experience that started out with a lot of promises and ended up as far less than it ought to have been. Keep this in mind, everyone, when you hear similar promises from the same source. I am interested to hear if anyone else has had similar problems; do the parts work, do they fit, has your customer experience been better.worse than mine?
Jim Rosenthal
Annapolis, MD