Tornado Sports Cars

[Steve Toner]

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It will probably take months for this thing to play out but if I end up with no car out of this, my next project will most likely be a restoration.

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Problem with that is that there are just not enough Cortinas to go around. Plus I've been buying up all the good parts off ebay. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

I really do hope that things don't pan out as bad as it looks like they might for you guys. I had what I guess is a similar monetary loss when my car was stolen (what I paid minus what the insurance reimbursed), but at least I got to put a few hundred miles on it first...

 

Mike, if I had dozens of wanna be's using my bodies, there would definitely be supply problems!

 

[Keith]

Surely it's the same for any "cottage" industry - economy of scale and the ability, foresight and courage to just say "no"(to extra orders) when current and cyclic fashion encourages the less visionary to ramp up production and increase the labour force with attendant rises in cost without necessarily improving the profitability or cash flow.

The temptation to do this has lured many competant entrepreneurs into the clutches of the Official Receiver in all types of small specialised industries, not at all limited to the "component car" business. And before anyone accuses me of speaking with hindsight, I was a manufacturer once in a similarly volatile industry and I swear never again. I made far more success mating buyers with experienced manufacturers as the middle man and problem solver than I ever did making things myself. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/soapbox.gif

 

[Chris Martino]

Hey Mike - I agree that these guys need to have a well oiled machine with back-up plans but that's the problem. In most cases there are no others that can produce these parts unless you are willing shell out big $ for one to start from scratch to manuf your parts. A lot of companies just don't want the hassels of setting up tooling for low volume orders and that leaves you with 2 options: A, manuf in house or re-design so you can eliminate problem parts, again, both not cheap and not always do-able. I know Mark at MDA has had to resort to making a lot of these hard to find items in-house and keep a short leash on selling them to others to keep stock for the builds.

It's a tough industry for sure and certainly doesn't take much to give these builders a lot of grief.

Chris