Original Maverick Toolings Found! All sheet metal to be reproduced!

Dennis Carpenter got a lot of the original dies from Ford on the later Mustang parts that went obsolete in the late 90's. I have heard over the years that most of the earlier dies were simply crushed when the part was discontinued. I also heard that a large fire damaged/destroyed a huge portion of the dies that were obsoleted in the 80's.

The cost of the tooling/dies is what keeps me from reproducing any more parts. You have to sell a ton just to get out from under your initial LARGE investment and hope that no one else does the same part before you. I would really like to help out the Maverick guys with some of the harder parts to find but I don't see it happening based on the rising costs to reproduce parts.

Ed Bennett (Jr)

PS: Thanks to all the forum guys who stopped by in Columbus (even if just to say Hi). It was nice meeting a few of the people from the board.

 

I would be curious.....what kind of money are we talking about to get a quarter panel repopped, for example.

 

I know a guy that owns a die shop, we talked about this a few times since he's also a car guy. They have a machine that will trace any object, then convert it to a die. Pretty amazing, but even he says the cost involed just at his cost doesn't make it affordable, even with his own press.
Maybe someday an offshore company will come up with the parts we need...

 

Stefan, why do you keep letting this go on???

Post a new rule...Anyone who lies and makes the aggregate blood pressure of the forum members rise by over 100 points gets banned for 1 week

 

Hey I wonder how much it actually costs for this, if we did a " Tooling Drive" over the course of the year where funds could be contributed,
I wonder if we did donations and had a treasurer hold those in an account if we could make that happen?

 

Fenders and Quarters and Hoods Oh my, can you say ..custom Grabber Comet Hood?

 

I would be willing to donate even for parts I would never use (such as a grabber hood).

 

I had mentioned this once before. I was at a car show at Year One and was speaking to a representitive from GoodMark Industries. They had just started making full 1/4 panels for Dodge Chargers. He told me they had $350,000 invested before the first 1/4 panel was stamped.

 

Not to mention the freakin' HUGE press that would be needed.

 

Dan........ you'll get your's! lol

 

I talked to a guy at Carlisle a few years back, I believe his company was called Rolling Steel. He had a lot of GM and Mopar (and a few Ford) full steel patch panels. His prices were reasonable so I asked him about making a Maverick full quarter panel. He said it was becoming very, very difficult to get anything done overseas at a reasonable price. The vendors he had been using were out of business and he was having quite a time getting anything new made.

As for the $350,000 just for tooling up for the Charger quarters, I can believe that. I've never gotten a quote on a full OEM quarter. Most manufacturers just laugh and ask you how deep your pockets are.

To put pricing into perspective though, I know that about 5 or 6 years ago there was a rumor that the 67-8 and 69 Cougar Wheel Lip Mouldings were gonna be re-popped overseas. The buzz was all over the shows. Well to make a long story short, it never happened. I talked to the parties involved and they said it was $10,000 to $12,500 per die which means $40-$50,000 just to tool-up for the parts (that's a lot of sets you have to sell just to clear the initial start-up!!!!).

I know some people hate this thread going on so long, but I know others have been wondering why no Mav/Comet repo parts? Price, pure and simple!

Ed

 

Just brain storming guys, and remember we have talked about the need for repops for a long time, had we been doing something like this we might have enough pooled by now.
How's this scenario, every year Both Car clubs jointly, sell raffle tickets, $10 each?? offer this up to other Ford Car clubs, (promotes more interest in Mavericks/Comets).. Enter as often as you like. the prize a rust free restorable Maverick/Comet, ( found by a partnership between the 2 clubs). All proceeds go to a fund to pay for the funding of tooling. The cost to pay for the Raffle car, collected as a special contribution paid with dues? Get a Magazine involved to help with cost? other ideas, Donations from other Ford clubs? Joint venture and assistance from Ford ..Great PR great Press for them. I think we are looking at a big number and thinking hey no way is that gonna happen. Look at the numbers. if we have only 1000 people, by 1 raffle ticket, that is $10000, How many would you buy for a chance to win a car? How many people are in each club? How many sponsors could we get? Could we get a Mag to cover this? all this is brainstorming. Lots of pie in the sky here, but... If we had open donations to the fund, can we get some one like Year 1 to pick up part of the tab if we made it worth their while?
I'm just throwing out ideas, My wife says I am a dreamer, i say that is a compliment, I don't know about, tooling, presses , or any of that but I know a snowflake can't do anything but a bunch of them can paralize a city. so what if it took 5 years to bring this project to fruition? 5 years from now where are the rust free doner cars going to come from ?
I know many of you will respectfully think this is pie in the sky, but maybe one of these ideas will spark another then another , and maybe another that is actually do -able. just my 2 cents

 

The ONLY way it will ever happen is the same way anything happens in the free enterprise system: show somebody how they can make a HUGE profit at doing this and it WILL happen.

Bottom line.....there will never be a HUGE profit made from repopping Maverick parts. I know when the Maverick valve covers were made....it only required a few thousand dollars up fron to get it started. Well...that was easy to come by....so they were made. They didn't sell very well at all....so now they are no longer going to be made. I can't imagine any one person, persons, organization, organizations, or business ponying up $350,000 to get ONE part repopped.

I do like pie in the sky though.....can I get that alamode.