Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 02:50:44 -0500
Reply-To: Jonathan Farrugia <jfarrugi@UMICH.EDU>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Jonathan Farrugia <jfarrugi@UMICH.EDU>
Subject: Re: JFF - re: Save the Adventurewagen Molds! (ultra long)
In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.0.20050206100021.01af3cc8@mail.gct21.net>
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"My Plea to the Group for the Molds"
Okay here we go :). I anticipate this being a long post so I am going to
put an index here at the top.
1. Some personal information about me.
2. Research on Hightops.
3. Hightop production in the United States.
4. My Plan for the Adventurewagen molds.
1. Some personal information about me.
-----------------------------------------
I am interested in the responsibility of taking the molds and
giving it my best shot to get a short production run out of the molds if
at all possible. There are most certainly several people that will want
to do this so here is my story for you to better understand why I want to
take the molds.
Back in 1995 when I lived in Montana I came to own a 1979 Safare Hightop
camper. I came to believe that this was the best thing since sliced
bread. Eventually my roommate also came to the same conclusion. I was
driving the 79 Hightop and our other roommate was driving a 78 passenger
van. Anyhow my roommate pestered me for months to buy the camper. As
time wore on I found a 84 Vanagon that needed an engine and started to
think about trading up to water cooling. In the end I made the decision
to sell my friend the hightop and move up to the Vanagon. The plan was to
get it running and then find a hightop for it as I had heard from several
people that you could still purchase them.
As I started doing my research all roads let to Ed Anderson out at
Adventurewagen in Fort Bragg. Buy this time I was back in Michigan
helping my brother start a industrial electrical contracting company. I
had several conversations with Ed over a six month to a year period about
getting a top. At the time he was full swing into the Ford Adventurewagen
production. The result of the conversations was that he said he would
never be producing the Vanagon Hightops again as he was too busy with the
Ford project. He mentioned at the time that people were always calling in
attempts to purchase tops but the only thing he provided for customers was
assistance in locating them used complete Adventurewagens. I couldn't
afford a complete Adventurewagen so that wasn't an option for me. In the
end Ed offered to sell me the molds to make the tops.
At the time I figured the cost of the molds + shipping from California +
actual cost to build a top in the mold. This cost was pretty high and
being young and dumb I figured for that money I could wait several years
and find a used top or a wrecked van. Well here I sit ten years later
with no top. I have managed to find several tops over the years on
wrecked vans but the problem has always been that they were in California
and no one I ever talked to was willing to ship the top, or the top was
burned in an engine fire. My mom always told us when we were growning up
that hindsight is 20/20. I now see in hindsight that if I really wanted a
hightop ten years ago I should have jumped on the molds back then. So in
the last five years or so I have thought intensively about how to get a
hightop for my van which I will cover in the next part of the post on
research.
2. Research on Hightops.
---------------------------
Over the years I have thought of quite a few ways to get my hands on a
hightop for my van. These have included the following :
1. Find a good used donor hightop.
2. Find some fiberglass shop in the United States that already makes
hightops for Vanagons.
3. Design a plug myself and build a mold for my own design.
4. Buy a hightop from Germany where they are cheap and readily available
and have it shipped here.
5. Build my own top from the Adventurewagen molds or my own mold.
Finding a good used donor hightop has not worked out for me partially
because of my geographic location in the country. People living in the
west have managed to make this happen but it hasn't worked for me. A few
years back I did finally manage to find a fiberglass shop in the United
States that makes hightops for Vanagons. This is the shop:
http://www.fiberine.com/
At least one lister that I know of has purchased one of these tops. As
far as I can remember that was Karl Mullendore. Perhaps he can speak
about the top and his satisfaction with it. From short conversations with
him via email it seems that he wasn't totally satisfied with the top.
Okay onto designing my own plug and molds. I have done some reading in
technical manuals that deal with the fiberglass industry and the basics
of production over the years. Beyond that I have done quite a bit of
research online about plug and mold construction and short run production.
The most insightful has been sites where individuals build and design a
complete car themselves including all the plugs and molds to make parts.
These sites are where you see the ways to save time and money in short one
off production in my opinion. Most of the other stuff out there shows how
to do production will all the good expensive stuff, I found a lot of the
boat building sites like this.
Up until now I have always kept this idea in the back of my head as my
last resort if I couldn't come up with a hightop any other way. Also
along the way I researched bringing a hightop in from Germany where they
are readily available and reasonably cheap. I have seen used hightops go
on Ebay.de for under $100. The main problem with getting a hightop here
is the cost. Shippers use a volume to weight calculation to figure
shipping cost. As one person was nice enough to tell me "you could ship
a complete van to the U.S. for the same cost as I could ship this top". I
inquired both in Germany with German shippers and with U.S. shippers. I
don't really have any contacts in the industry so most certainly I got the
"off the street pricing". There are certainly some individuals on the
list that could get this done both cheaper and faster that I ever could.
Shipping of tops from Germany to the states has been covered on the list
as recent as last year. See the archived post below,
http://gerry.vanagon.com/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0405b&L=vanagon&F=&S=&P=76041
I don't know if any tops ever made it to this country from this deal.
Perhaps Jeff can answer that if he wants. I think the answer will give
some indications of the market for hightops in this country ( I will cover
that more later).
So do you think I have way to much time on my hands yet :). Okay so the
only other avenue to a hightop I have considered is building one myself
either from my own plug and mold or building one from the Adventurewagen
molds. So as I more seriously considered the cost of building up my own
top I did some pricing research. What I did was construct a web page of
about 20 different Adventurewagen top shots. I then found myself a local
shop with a web presence, described the construction of the Adventurewagen
top to them directed them to my web page and asked them to give me a ball
park quote to get a top out of the mold if I had the Adventurewagen molds
and they were READY for production. Here is the email response I received
on August 2003:
Hi Jonathan,
This is a large part. Looks like the cost should be between $1800 to
$2200 range. The inside liner and bulk head, with insulation. We will cut
out for windows but not install them. Gel coat finish, painted finish is
extra. This is just a ball park price. We would like to see the part and
or the molds to finalize the price.
3. Hightop production in the United States.
----------------------------------------------
Okay all that amazingly long stuff above has brought us here, I can't even
believe that I have typed so much on the issue of hightops :). To recap
there are currently three ways that I know of to get a hightop in the
United States.
1. Find a good used top.
2. Buy a top from Fiberine.
3. Import one of the dozen tops from Germany.
So basically what we have been discussing on the list is about using these
Adventurewagen molds to bring about a fourth option of getting a Vanagon
hightop in the United States. The discussion that needs to parallel this
revolves around real world economics and mechanical ability to produce the
tops from these molds. This is some thing I have long thought about and
considered because as most of the people on this list cost is a factor for
me. In reality if it wasn't I would just plunk my dollars down and bring
a complete hightop van here from Germany take its top and use the rest for
parts. That avoids most of the importing pitfalls that Jeff has spoken
about at length on this list.
Anyhow back to the economics part of the deal. My consideration of the
economics of hightop production has extended beyond my idle thoughts. I
sought out the small fiberglass shop bid as show in part 2 of this email.
Secondly I did a Hightop Purchase Survey across this list and the
Adventurewagen Yahoo list. My intent here was to see what the demand for
hightops would at a silly low price. As a side note I received quite a
few emails from people telling me that my estimated price would almost
totally be consumed by material cost. That wasn't a concern to me since I
wanted to get the broadest idea of the "current" demand for Vanagon
hightops. Part of my assumption is that in a basic economic model is that
as price goes up demand will fall off, and I will leave the economic
analysis at that :). Okay here are the results from the survey.
http://gerry.vanagon.com/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0305b&L=vanagon&F=&S=&P=20426
Surely things change overtime and not everyone that would purchase one
replied to the survey but, I find the survey results very telling. Less
than 10 hightops would be sold if production had occurred at the time of
the survey.
On to where I feel we as a group currently stand with our effort to make
some of these Vanagon Adventurewagen hightops.
1. The molds are free :).
2. They need to get to a safe location fast or they will be for ever
lost.
3. After they get to a temporary safe location they need to go some where
to be permanently stored and put into production.
4. Before the molds can be put in production they need to be redone so
that good parts can be made from the molds.
5. The first test part must be made to test the system.
6. Small scale production could start if people were willing to pay the
cost to actually produce hightops.
It would probably be months before the first part was ready to come out of
the mold and in addition to that there is going to be some hefty up front
costs to get the first part out. The costs I speak of are the following.
1. Short term cost to save the molds.
2. Transportation costs to the production destination.
3. Cost to bring the molds back to production readiness.
So we as a group need to figure out how best to proceed.
4. My Plan for the Adventurewagen Molds.
------------------------------------------
So here are my thoughts on what I would do if the group decided to grant
me possession of the Vanagon Adventurewagen Molds. I would bring them to
Michigan, have them repaired and get the first hightop out of the molds.
Then with the true costs of production in hand and the true quality of the
product the molds could produce I would approach the lists and offer the
tops. I would offer tops at approximately 10 percent over cost. That is
a ball park figure that I am just throwing out there to cover my cost of
time of bringing the molds to Michigan, getting the molds up to production
standards, and storing the molds.
Here is why I think I am well positioned to make this happen. I have a
very strong personal interest in getting a top for my van and I have a ten
year history of wanting one. Hopefully I have shown above that more than
just a passing fancy for hightops. I have also had my Vanagon for ten
years as well as three others :). Additionally my brother that I helped
start his business has a 8,000 square foot building where the molds can be
stored. A really interesting side note here is that the company across
the street from my brothers shop installs hightops on vans to convert them
to Handicap accessible vehicles.
On the production side of the equation are these things. I am situated in
the "automotive capital of the world" :) and also near a lot of boat
repair/construction capacity and knowledge here in Michigan. Finding
a shop to make the tops shouldn't be a problem and there are enough shops
that I will be able to shop quotes both for the mold repair and
production. I haven't ruled out doing some of both myself but it would
have to be on more of as time allows basis.
Basically what I have done so far was to respond to the original poster
that posted the availability of the free molds. Since then I have been in
communication with Steve trying the best I can from across the country to
save the molds. Without Steve I feel that the molds might have been
lost already, I know that when I was offered the molds ten years ago that
the fiberglass guy Ed used wanted them out of his storage. If it wasn't
for Steve doing the ground work we would all just be idly talking on the
web for the most part.
In closing I would like the groups approval to take possession of the
Adventurewagen molds and make the best possible attempt to get some
hightops out of the molds for the Vanagon community that has been so
giving to me over the years.
Jonathan Farrugia
On Sun, 6 Feb 2005, Steve wrote:
> It's OK Chris, Joe and a few others have already offered up some $$ to help
> with the cause.
>
> Here's what I'd like to do....
>
> If folks would like to chip in a few dollars to the cause, the easiest way is
> via PayPal. You can send money to:
>
> eats@weirdstuffwemake.com
> Please make sure to say it's for the AW molds.
>
> I don't have a "premier" account, so I can't accept credit card payments.
>
> If you would like to send funds via snail mail, please email me and I will
> send you my address.
>
> The money will be used to cover my out of pocket expenses which will
> include truck rental, gas, and probably lunch and a couple beers for
> a helper to load and unload.
>
> If there's money left over then I will set it aside until we can decide who
> gets the molds next. Once it's decided where the molds are going, then
> I will either use that money towards shipping to the new location and/or
> turn it over to the new "owner" to be used for restoration of the molds.
>
> I've had a couple list members who seem very interested in having
> them and seem sincere about trying to put them to use again.
>
> I've also been contacted by Ralph with Glass Action, and Ralph has
> expressed an interest in them.
> http://www.glass-action.com/
>
> I really don't want to be the one who decides the fate of these, so once
> they are safe here, we will need to have a pow-wow about what to do
> next. I would like it to be a "group action" either by vote or some other
> diplomatic way of deciding what's in the "best interest" for the molds.
>
> I'd rather like for the folks who want them to put their plea in to the
> group and once all the cards are on the table the group can decide
> what to do next.
>
> I will go get the molds next week, possibly on wednesday. Any list
> members in the area that want to meet in Santa Rosa CA and help
> load and unload ?
>
> Oh yeah, and when production starts up on AW high tops again,
> and I decide I need one, I hope that I'll be remembered and someone
> will lay up a real nice one for me and maybe give me the "good guy"
> discount and knock a couple bucks off the price... :-)
>
> Thanks all,
> Steve
>
>
>
