Datsun Roadster Forum-311s.org

Will and Stan;
Usually, the selling price of an item IS a consideration when determining whether or not to produce or manufacture it, at least in every discussion I had as a sales manager with the production team. It's simple math, if you can't recoup your costs at the price that you can obtain for the item....

I still remember the cartoon on the wall of the production managers office. It depicted two farm hands pitching bales of hay from the ground up onto a flat bed truck and one of them was saying: "You know, if we buy the hay at a dollar a bale, and sell it for a dollar a bale, we're going to need a much bigger truck to make any money!"

Lou may be producing beautiful and even better replicas of the originals. But if his asking price is too exorbitant, then he'll never sell too many. On the other hand, he may be recouping ALL of his costs just selling ONE of them, after that it's pure profit on the rest of them....

That a product is BETTER than what it replaces is a good selling point and allows you to price it higher, but after a given price level the consumer starts to weigh the need as compared to it's value. Price it too high and you won't sell any, regardless of how desireable it is.

That's why production always asked what we salespeople thought we could sell an item for and then amortized the development and production costs over the projected sales/production scenario. Even then, sometimes a product just wasn't profitably produceable.

The "trash talk" should be more of a guidemark to the manufacturer than criticism.

FWIW
E

I maintain that there just isn't much of a market for these. Ask Scott Sheeler - he threw several away because he never had anyone ask about them. On a practical note, most of the folks that I have talked to that have been in a car equipped with the foot rest state that it gets in the way. I sort of want one just as a "gee whiz" piece, but not at the current asking price...

Thank you Sid!

Ditto x2 (I would like two... at a reasonable price.)

Heck, I'd take one/two even in poor condition!
E

The market sets the price, as always. Both extremes work, cheap and sell lots of them or expensive and sell a few. The trick is whether there is a demand and , for Australia, if it can be shipped to the US cheap enough.

A cool way might be if it bolted between the seat tracks and telescoped forward in 2 or 3 sections, and being able to slide back against the seat to store it, or have it follow the floor contours at the front of the footwell, and flip back to use. but that's way too much R&D for me. I'll give a try at making one, have lots of EMT and a bender. If it's workable, then use stainless tube for a keeper.

I think we are also seeing the difference between how the roadster is viewed here and how its viewed in the Land Down Under. I bet if you were to go looking for swapper mobiles in Australia, you'd find a couple, but not many. Down there, its my understanding that roadsters are viewed as rare and highly collectible items that should keep the original parts, and are even better if they have the odd thing like this foot rest. That is why the cool parts are beginning to be produced down there and we don't get to see many of them. The US market people seem to be cheap and largely uninterested in spending the $ to either build the aftermarket stuff or to buy it if someone else does all the hard work.

In this case, I have to admit, I don't think I'd want one of these foot rests. I wouldn't take one for free even (well perhaps if it were given to me as a gift, but it would end up living in the shed as a "Hey I bet you have never seen a one of these." part.) I do respect the fact that they did make it available to us to buy. I think its really cool for that matter. I wish more of the stuff would be offered, but because of the very issue we are discussing right now, it makes no sense to do so. The American market for the large part is not willing to spend any more $ than the absolutely have to in order to have a working car. If it takes a little effort to find an engine part, away goes the engine in favor of a more modern one simply because they didn't want spend the effort to fix it the right way. Thats really too bad since its the rare roadster that gets 5000 miles on it a year, let alone 10K. I bet I can count the # that see 8000 and get raced.

What we have here is a differing view point of the cars. Here they aren't worth much and the owners for the most part don't want them to be (its been stated over and over on this forum) That is really sad.

By the way, Lou does look on this site from time to time. I don't think he is a member, but I do know that he follows certain threads and is likely aware of this current one we are on.

Will

SLOroadster wrote: I bet if you were to go looking for swapper mobiles in Australia, you'd find a couple, but not many.

The onus is on you to prove that only 2 Datsuns in Australia have engine swaps. I can come up with a baker's dozen in about 5 seconds. Kind of debunks your theory that "they" apparently value their cars more than "us".

SLOroadster wrote:That is why the cool parts are beginning to be produced down there and we don't get to see many of them.

What is a "cool" part? A set of leaf springs? Go-go-fast parts? What is "cool" to you may not be cool to others.

SLOroadster wrote:The US market people seem to be cheap and largely uninterested in spending the $ to either build the aftermarket stuff or to buy it if someone else does all the hard work.

I find this statement offensive to all of our friends and vendors here that work their assess off to provide this community with parts to keep the cars alive. How can you say such a thing when people like Gerardo/Dean/Stan/Brisco, etc., are reproducing and tooling items small and large?
It's because of these folks that you don't have to pay $1k for such unobtainium pieces like a license plate trim. Gerardo just advertised wiper mount parts...as random as that may seem, is that being offered in Australia? Does that mean they don't value their roadsters as much as we do?

SLOroadster wrote:I wish more of the stuff would be offered, but because of the very issue we are discussing right now, it makes no sense to do so.

Start a thread on parts that you want reproduced, talk to vendors or machinists.

SLOroadster wrote:If it takes a little effort to find an engine part, away goes the engine in favor of a more modern one simply because they didn't want spend the effort to fix it the right way.

By your logic, it takes less effort to perform an entire drivetrain swap compared to just finding the "original" engine part to fix it? So if my stock engine needs a new throttle linkage, and I'm too lazy to find a new one, it's cheaper and less effort just to put in a modern engine?

SLOroadster wrote:Thats really too bad since its the rare roadster that gets 5000 miles on it a year, let alone 10K. I bet I can count the # that see 8000 and get raced.

So what if owners drive 2000 miles rather than 10,000? Does this make them less "worthy"' or less appreciative of roadsters?
What bearing does "racing" ones roadster have on their love/effort put into their car?

SLOroadster wrote:By the way, Lou does look on this site from time to time. I don't think he is a member, but I do know that he follows certain threads and is likely aware of this current one we are on.

What's your point?

Alvin
You may not understand that parts here are very thin on the ground. so when one person pays much higher prices than say you would for the equivalent part.it may seem like we value our cars more.
What i have noticed is that i would pay more for a part than and American would for the volume of avaliablity or parts.we have 20 million people here and only about 1000 datsun's where shipped here.
Im only tring to explain from my point of view as i wish i could buy a parts car for $300(example only).although it would be a project here.

Ok Alvin, lets look at this. As for swapper cars, I didn't say specificly 2 cars, I said a couple, as in a few, as in not many. How you arrived at my saying specificly 2 cars, I'm not sure.

As for cool parts being produced, this foot rest is one thing, there are also some pretty awesome headers, revalved Konis, custom Bilstein shocks, the heat shields, how about a quick ratio steering box? Obviously the mono-leaf springs, not to mention some pretty wild R and U series engines. U20 lower tensioner feet. I'm pretty sure there is more stuff as well that I don't know of, but I could find out with a quick email. Yeah, some of that is go fast stuff, but along those same lines, many of those parts could be used on the street on a stockish car with no adverse effects.

As for people not wanting to spend the $ on stuff, I've looked into many of the parts, and I have quite a few of them. (Gerardo's door panels, his throttle linkages, Stan's timing gears, Mike Youngs front comp springs, all good stuff.) I've also looked into producing quite a few things and have come to the conclusion that I don't have the $ to fund the production runs, and there wasn't enough interest to try to make it happen. Look at the mess with the lower ball joints, someone went to the time and effort to make them happen and got slammed for it. You guys picked her apart for no good reason. I think its great that Gerardo is reproducing stuff like wiper parts and license plate trims along with reproduction Everwings. Its a bold move, I hope the stuff sells. Heck if I needed any of that, I'd buy it from him.

My logic on the motor swaps taking less energy than doing the real thing, is pretty obvious when a car is pulled out of the weeds with no engine and rather than go getting a correct engine to "save" the car, a modern one goes in. Really, its not hard to find a good R16 or U20.

As for driving the car much, my point is that I hear "Oh I need a modern engine because its more reliable" or something like that. If its not getting used, whats the point. I see a car as a tool, not a toy, it doesnt' matter how practicle the thing is, its still a tool. The point with the racing it as well as driving it was that even when beaten on it still keeps on going.

As for Lou reading the post, its not exactly nice to bash a part that he put some effort into and offered to our market. If it were me, I'd say, that market doesn't want what I have so I'm not going to offer it. Then everyone looses. The part doesn't get sold, nor is it offered to anyone over here who might want it. I'm happy that he is trying to sell stuff over here, and its too bad we have to bash the stuff because from what I have seen, its really nice stuff.

Will

Scarcity has ALWAYS been a price enhancer. We see that here in the U.S. as well as other parts of the world.

Where in Australia there are very few Roadsters, and it follows that there would be even less survivors after 40+ years, those that own and maintain one are forced to accept higher prices for items that in other parts of the world may be both plentiful and inexpensive to buy. That's just simple economics.

That's also the reason why some Australia and New Zealand owners for both the Roadster and the Z's oftentimes look for "bargains" in the U.S. that we in America would pass up as too expensive. They're willing to pay the shipping costs etc. and probably still come out ahead. Again, simple economics: buy it where it's cheap, take it to where it's expensive. Do the trip the right way, you make money, do it the other way around and you lose your shirt.

While I agree with Will's thoughts regarding admiring someone who endeavours to produce these parts, I also wish that they would recall that if you price them too high, only those people; such as those of you in Australia and New Zealand who are accustomed to having to fork out large dollars for parts; will buy them.

I don't see any of this discussion as "bashing" anyone's part, unlike the discussions about the ball joints. I see this discussion as being more of a healthy point-counterpoint regarding why parts in one part of the world are more desireable (read as more $) than in other parts of the world.

Lou's target market may or may not include the U.S.. He may be targeting Aus/NZ exclusively but he will sell to any Yank willing to pay the price and he may be completely happy with that. However, if his prices are exorbitant (as far as the U.S. is concerned), then at some point competitors will jump in and eventually service the same target market as he. That is something that he may want to consider and plan for. That is what my point regarding production costs amortized over the projected production run was all about. If he were to lower his current price, he'd sell more both in his target market and others and may, in turn, become the ONLY source for this item and others, simply because others would have the huge start up costs to compete.

The others, Dean, Gerardo, Stan, Gary, Ross and others, who have done fantastic work in reproducing, re-designing, and manufacturing items apparently have this figured out and they must be making some money at it, or they woudln't keep doing it.

2¢
E

That would be me on the ball joint project, but I would rather give a plug to Rareparts-www.rareparts.com as the manufacturer willing to do the reproduction on that particular part because they had to put up with a lot of crap that they would have preferred not to have, and did not have with other parts they made for other cars. And this is the lesson for those making parts. Thanks to them you can get lower ball joints cheaper, and I hope we remind everyone and support them as a legitimate vendor for our cars.
As for what others make or sell for I don't care, but feel that any competition is fine too.

Linda

For my engine rebuild, I went to the land down under for parts, guess what, they are cheaper even with shipping. Do I know they are better? Not yet, but knowing what Lou has built with these same parts, it is worth the try.

As for cars in Australia, yeah they are rare. A car considered too rusty on the west coast of the US is considered nearly rust free on the east coast, however a rusty east coast car is worth every penny in Australia. In my book, all roadsters are worth saving no matter how rusty the body is. I took one to the dump once and I still feel guilty about it nearly 10 years later. It was a very restore-able car, yeah it had some rust in the body, but it wasn't horrible.

One of the reasons Lou has possibly started putting parts on ebay is because the market over there has become flooded at the moment with some of the parts. To be honest, I'd really like to find out what all he has. I admit, I paid through the nose on shipping with the set of springs, however cheaper methods have been found and it doesn't hurt as much now. Heck I paid as much in shipping for a set of jack shaft bearings from Dean as I did to ship my timing chains, lower tensioner foot, and piston rings half way around the world. Needless to say, shipping for smaller items is not that bad.

Will

Well, since I started this thread, I am blown away as to how philisophical and contentious a very simple observation and question has become.

1) I think it's an interesting part, and I had never seen or heard of one before.
2) I personally think it is expensive, so I would not buy one, even if it is the best quality in the world.
3) If it were cheaper, I still probably would not buy one, cause I don't really need one.
4) I in no way was trying to, or intent on, bashing the part, or the manufacturer
5) I appreciate any vendor that chooses to reproduce anything made of unobtanium.
6) I still will choose to buy things that are a good value and pass on things that I feel are too expensive especially if I don't really need it.
7) I will continue to support the vendors that produce the other many parts that I do need!

So, in answering the original question, YES, this is an original, and unique, Roadster part. Some people feel it is expensive. Some people don't. Some people will buy one, others will not. It's cool that it is available.

Tom

Tom,
Well put. I have to agree

Will

Here is the maker of these parts.
http://www.hrc-dat.com.au/index.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;