From: Andy Greenshields
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1999 09:06:13 -0000
Subject: [imps] Kingpins
Tim
I'll direct this question at you as you have something to do with the spares.
I have seen in at least two different car magazines small pieces that Cafco and/or another company have had 500 sets of kingpins produced which will retail at about £16 or something like that. Is this anything to do with the club or something they have done off their own back?
It's a shame that they can't finance some steering rack gaiters!
andy
From: Tim Morgan
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1999 10:58:07 EST
Subject: [imps] Re: Kingpins/ Remanufactured Spares
Hi Andy,
Something to do with spares......hmmmm, yes allegedly!
The kingpins you mentioned were not financed by the club. I think I ought to explain the club's position on spares remanufacture........
We as a club will not be financing the remanufacture of any new spares. As there are a large network of Imp spares specialists, it is not practical to compete with them and as much as anything we just simply do not have the funds to do so.
Therefore my role is to get the manufacturers, such as QH etc, to remanufacture the parts so that they may be sold through the spares specialists. In this way, we can facilitate the availability of Imp spares without any financial obligations to the club, whilst ensuring that there is someone making sure that when a particular item sells out, replacements can be made available - that's me.
Of course it isn't as simple as all that, mainly due to the production runs needed to make a spare part viable to the manufacturer greatly exceed those practical in view of the number of cars left. Therefore, we find ourselves in catch-22 situations with many parts, such as the engine mounts.....To give you an idea of the costs involved, just to set up the tooling so that they could be remanufactured it would have cost £4000, and then the minimum production run would be 500 units. This would work out at £24.33 + VAT each....add that little lot up and it comes to £18,300, just to remake engine mounts. The Imp Club does not have £18,000 spare.......and I'm not going to begin to try to explain the problems concerning public liability insurance for selling bits like that!!
Therefore, we are back to the drawing board and looking around again. That's why it takes so long for these things to happen and why the Imp Club are not going to be financing anything further for the forseeable future.
I hope that explains.......
Cheers,
Tim
(With his Spares Facilitator hat on)