Bob Drake Repro
Member
To clear up some misconceptions about some previous posts made here regarding our parts being made overseas. Not “all” of my parts are made in China, in fact, very few are. Yes, we have a number of parts manufactured in Taiwan by original equipment manufacturer vendors. We still have a large presence in USA manufacturing as well (mostly in the Los Angeles to Seattle corridor). We even had our own in house mold shop for years, with 8 qualified mold makers. Well, times change and you have to change with the times. We personally don’t like importing any more than a lot of you. We continue to support USA manufacturing companies and source our products with them whenever it makes good business sense.
When I first started in 1971 it was very easy to find USA vendors that could run our products in the kinds of small quantities that we needed and with very good quality. Many of these vendors are still great friends today. In the past few years, I have seen a major downturn in American manufacturing. We personally have lost 4 die casters, numerous rubber companies, stamping companies, chrome shops (you all know how hard it is to find a good chrome shop)… many of these companies just shut down. We were forced to look elsewhere or give it up ourselves.
We continue to do a lot of the hands on manufacturing and assembly that we always have done, we still have control over the quality and design of our parts. We have a great team at our 3 facilities in Southern Oregon, in support positions like Research & Development, Engineering, Purchasing, Assembly, Sales, Art, etc.
As far as my running boards go, yeah, we had them made in China. Spent 3 years sourcing 7 vendors within a 100 mile radius to do the tooling, stamping, plating, rubber presses, box company, etc. Our in house, American engineer did all the CAD work and supervised the entire project. Another 2 years to have the tooling made, tested and production ran. I consider this one of our best accomplishments to date. We finished 5 different boards in just over 2 years. The cost to do this was more than most of you can imagine, I couldn’t estimate what the cost would be if these could even be made these in the USA. My guess is it would be ten-fold.
But it’s not only money, remember, these boards were done the same way as Henry Ford’s vulcanization method, by compressing rubber to the board under extreme pressure. I don’t even think these large presses needed for this project exist in the USA today, they are obsolete here. Our 1940 deluxe and standard grilles are another example. Huge zinc die cast machines are needed to produce these parts. Once again, these machines don’t exist here. Today’s grilles are made from plastic or composite material.
The specialized manufacturing processes that were done in the USA years ago have all but disappeared. The expertise has also, there’s not much trade curriculum being taught in the USA anymore. Ford used a wire “bead” in their fenders. The crimping to put this wire in place was done by a Magee machine. That machine isn’t even around anymore much less the guy that knows how to use it.
If any of you think this has anything to do with “greed”, think again. We re-invest a majority of profit into new products. We finished 200+ new products for the early Ford car and truck market last year. Showing our passion and commitment to “Keeping the Ford Spirit Alive”.
Bob
When I first started in 1971 it was very easy to find USA vendors that could run our products in the kinds of small quantities that we needed and with very good quality. Many of these vendors are still great friends today. In the past few years, I have seen a major downturn in American manufacturing. We personally have lost 4 die casters, numerous rubber companies, stamping companies, chrome shops (you all know how hard it is to find a good chrome shop)… many of these companies just shut down. We were forced to look elsewhere or give it up ourselves.
We continue to do a lot of the hands on manufacturing and assembly that we always have done, we still have control over the quality and design of our parts. We have a great team at our 3 facilities in Southern Oregon, in support positions like Research & Development, Engineering, Purchasing, Assembly, Sales, Art, etc.
As far as my running boards go, yeah, we had them made in China. Spent 3 years sourcing 7 vendors within a 100 mile radius to do the tooling, stamping, plating, rubber presses, box company, etc. Our in house, American engineer did all the CAD work and supervised the entire project. Another 2 years to have the tooling made, tested and production ran. I consider this one of our best accomplishments to date. We finished 5 different boards in just over 2 years. The cost to do this was more than most of you can imagine, I couldn’t estimate what the cost would be if these could even be made these in the USA. My guess is it would be ten-fold.
But it’s not only money, remember, these boards were done the same way as Henry Ford’s vulcanization method, by compressing rubber to the board under extreme pressure. I don’t even think these large presses needed for this project exist in the USA today, they are obsolete here. Our 1940 deluxe and standard grilles are another example. Huge zinc die cast machines are needed to produce these parts. Once again, these machines don’t exist here. Today’s grilles are made from plastic or composite material.
The specialized manufacturing processes that were done in the USA years ago have all but disappeared. The expertise has also, there’s not much trade curriculum being taught in the USA anymore. Ford used a wire “bead” in their fenders. The crimping to put this wire in place was done by a Magee machine. That machine isn’t even around anymore much less the guy that knows how to use it.
If any of you think this has anything to do with “greed”, think again. We re-invest a majority of profit into new products. We finished 200+ new products for the early Ford car and truck market last year. Showing our passion and commitment to “Keeping the Ford Spirit Alive”.
Bob
Mr.Hunley Acuff
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