Long Overdue Praise & Appreciation

Bob Bidonde

Bob Bidonde

Well-known member
I want to thank and express my appreciation for all of the Model "A" parts dealers and parts manufacturers. you all are the primary reason our hobby has reached the immense popularity it has enjoyed. I appreciate & thank you for venturing your capital, for doing the research to make things right & for the advice you give your customers. I also thank you for letting our clubs use your facilities for activities. You all are the backbone of our hobby. May God bless you all!
 
Very kind words Bob. I do agree. I do however, wish more people shared your sentiments. By that, I specifically mean with their wallets. Brutal, and I know I am preaching to the choir, but we all had better think about this before it is too late.

This hobby has drastically changed in the last 60+ years I have been around it. MARC used to be the acronym for Model A Restorers Club however it seems that R that used to be the word Restorers now stands for being the parts Replacer club.

In the Model-A club I grew up in, the primary focus of the entire membership was to restore your Model-A striving to replicate it as it was when new, and then promote the hobby to others. Likely 90% of the club members of both Clubs, the members did the restoration work themselves, -or the club members networked with other club members to help each other restore their cars. That camaraderie helped bind the Hobby and it made all the club members better craftsmen ...not only on their Model-As, but better craftsmen in all areas of their lives. We recently lost a major Model-A supplier and manufacturer because hobbyists of today seemingly choose to either buy the cheapest item for their Model-A, or they choose to not repair their Model-A and they just drive it until it can no longer be driven.

This hobby will always survive on some level, but how many more vendors or manufacturers can this hobby as a whole afford to lose??
 
Alleluia amen to both posts!!!
Some parts and crafts may never appear again!
I’ve espoused this before…..on parts, the economic build quantity far exceeds demand. Hence, no production.
 
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I fear we have lived through the halcyon days of reproduction parts availability. We got spoiled in the last 20-30 years by being able to order just about anything we needed to keep our Model A's running or to restore them. Prior to 1995 or so, not nearly the quantity or quality of parts were available to us Model A guys as post-2000. Too many cottage industry suppliers have died off, retired, sold their businesses (that later failed under new ownership) or lost interest in making the parts we need. On an order of 10 parts or more, these days I usually encounter an "Out of Stock" or "No longer available" response from the vendor for at least one or two parts that appeared in past printed catalogs. I also fear this trend will increase as the hobby and its suppliers age out. The sky is falling - at least, when I order parts. :(
Marshall
 
I agree wholeheartedly with Bob, Brent and Marshall. To my mind, there are two things that haven’t been mentioned.

Firstly, for the last 40-50 years we’ve gradually moved to a disposable society. Razors, telephones, coffee makers, garbage disposers, televisions, ratchet wrenches, what else. The imperative to build rugged items that LAST, and to repair them, has gone out the window under the onslaught of cheap “almost as good” stuff. Regardless of whether the piece comes from east, west or right here at home.

Secondly, to some extent I think we got spoiled during the heyday of the hobby (maybe 70s-90s? Pick your time span) when decent repro parts were widely available. People got used to replacing parts - it was easier, quicker, and didn’t have any performance impact. There used to be excellent repro steel fenders and radiator shells (I hate to think how many bent but by today’s standards salvageable ones got tossed), no longer. So as the hobby grew, many participants lost or never developed the ability to restore. Couple that with the high cost of specialized labor to restore versus buying a cheap repro, and it makes the choice to restore even harder. (Case in point - I know I live in California, but the cost of plating is asinine - rechroming bumper slats, for example, is easily twice the cost of buying new from the suppliers).

These are not excuses, only perhaps explanations. As always, my $0.02 worth.
 
As I have said seveal times in the past - You guys don't know how good you have it. There are 2 suppliers of Model A parts around here but becuse the market is small, they cannot keep an inventory as extensive as they would like. If we want an item they don't have in stock, we either wait a few months or buy online from a US supplier. If we do that, the shiiping cost by air is rediculous and several months wait if by surface freight. For surface, the goods spend about 5 weeks on the water but there are many more weeks waiting at each end for bureaocrats to do their thing. From dispatch to receipt generally takes 4 months - about the same as when ships relied on the wind and were made from wood.
Enjoy what you have and don't grizzle it might get worse!!!
 
I agree with Bob. Kudos to Mike's and Snyders' in particular, from both of whom I have had great and timely service. In Germany we have a couple of Model A parts suppliers...but they are selling about 90% US imported parts. Otherwise the A community would be extinct.


There are a lot fewer pre-war cars on the roads here...for obvious reasons...so parts for them tend to be more expensive than in the USA. On large, parts intensive projects it can make more sense to order directly from the US and pay the higher shipping and customs fees..rather than the in-country offerings from in-country dealers which pay the same costs plus a necessary profit mark-up.
 
I believe I'm the newest Model A parts supplier. While it's a business, I am lucky to have a military retirement and regular job that puts food on the table so my profit margins can be pretty slim.

I really do enjoy seeing my parts helping out the community - that, to me, is worth every effort I put in to getting these parts made.

Dave
 
It's you and Kevin Duffy (the Model A Steering guy). Plus there's the anonymous suppliers, like whoever is now making the two-bladed fans. And no one's mentioned Burtz, which now supplies heads, flywheel housings, and soon water pumps that are superior to anything on the market in the last 25 years.
 
I especially want to thank & praise my local "A" parts dealer & good friend Bob Bader of Bobby Bees Automotive for all he has done to help me and the Model "A" Fords Club of Long Island.
 
alexiskai said:
It's you and Kevin Duffy (the Model A Steering guy). Plus there's the anonymous suppliers, like whoever is now making the two-bladed fans. And no one's mentioned Burtz, which now supplies heads, flywheel housings, and soon water pumps that are superior to anything on the market in the last 25 years.
Click to expand...

From what I can make out, his new water pumps will be like the ones I have been doing for myself for years. I quickly dismissed the idea of making them commercially for a couple of reasons. Americans don't like "foreign made" no matter how good it is and tarrffs rub me the wrong way. When I explained what I was doingf with them here and on another forum, I got absolutely NO response so I figured "Why bother?"
 
Synchro909 said:
From what I can make out, his new water pumps will be like the ones I have been doing for myself for years. I quickly dismissed the idea of making them commercially for a couple of reasons. Americans don't like "foreign made" no matter how good it is and tarrffs rub me the wrong way. When I explained what I was doingf with them here and on another forum, I got absolutely NO response so I figured "Why bother?"
Click to expand...


The Burtz brand carries a lot of weight right now, I bet these will be successful.
 
Synchro909 said:
Americans don't like "foreign made" no matter how good it is and tarrffs rub me the wrong way.
Click to expand...

The American made crowd is small, but vocal. Most vote with their wallets, and most understand that China and other foreign countries will make anything to the quality that the person seeking the manufacturing, requires.

I've bought stuff from Australia, because that's where it's being made, and the quality was great. I'll buy from China too.

Most Model A people are a finicky group, cheap, and like to complain. Just visit another restorers forum, or even the V8 side here and you'll see a different mentality.
 
alexiskai said:
The Burtz brand carries a lot of weight right now, I bet these will be successful.
Click to expand...

I agree and wonder why no one has made a water pump like these before. If about a century of further development has meant that cars these days have ball bearings and ceramic seals, why wouldn't the same work in a Model A and a LONG way better than the 100+ years old design that came in the day?
I made my first one with those features about 15 years ago and if a mug like me can do it, why hasn't anybody else. Price? Maybe. They will be more expensive than some "leakless" conversion but they work so much better and for so much longer that the extra $ is well spent, IMO.
 
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