Ron welcomes first time guest Dan Curtis from AZ AMC Restorations in Peoria Arizona. It seems Dan had posted about problems he is having with having engine machine work done correctly and in a timely manner. Ron read the post on social media and the attached interview is the result. Tune in to hear the problems with engine rebuilding today from someone with first hand experience. This stand alone interview is part of the second hour for May 4, 2024. It aired during the second half of the hour.
For more information about Ron Ananian, The Car Dr, visit their website at www.cardoctorshow.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome back listeners, Ron and any and the Car Doctor
our next guest. This is a little different, right, you know.
This really came about I was up on social media
the past week or so and I started to read
this post from this gentleman in fascination because it emulates
what I've been saying the past ten or fifteen years.
(00:29):
We're here on air for what thirty three now, but
for the longest time, that there are no machine shops left,
that we're running out of places to take engines to
rebuild them, that it's not such a common everyday practice.
Dan Curtis, the owner of azamc Restorations, is running into
this problem in his portion of the business out there
in Arizona. I guess it is Dan. Welcome to the
(00:50):
Car Doctor, sir. It's Arizona. Correct, is where your shop is?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
That is correct? And yes, pleasure to be with you.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Thank you, sir, and we appreciate you taking the time.
Post started out it's the first paragraph. Due to the
dwindling supply of quality machine shops and very poor quality
after market parts, as well as a lack of people
interested in learning the engine building a machine shop trades,
which that's a whole other conversation. I regret to inform
(01:16):
our many followers and current as well as past customers,
that will no longer be taking on any new engine
build orders unless it's for a car we are restoring.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
You know, when you restore a car, they you know,
they say, hey, Dan, I want you to restore my
AMC vehicle American Motors, you know, a javelin or whatever,
and you know, just take the car and build it.
And now and then you were also doing engines. Somebody
could bring you an engine and say, hey, just build
the engine. You're saying, hey, no more, we got to
do the whole car or nothing, because we don't have
the resources to do just engine work anymore. Tell us
(01:50):
about that.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
So when we first started, we actually were an engine
building shop to start with. And then as time progressed,
people started asking us to help them with more and
more things. And I had a collection of AMC cars
on my own, and they would see my cars and
they would say, can you make my car, my Javelin
or AMX or Ramble Scrambler as good as yours? And
I said, sure, we can do that. So I ended
(02:12):
up buying a shop thinking it was going to be
both a mechanical and a body shop, and as you
probably know from being in an interest for yourself, they're
not very compatible. So I ended up buying a second
shop a couple hundred feet away, So we now have
a paint and body shop in a restoration shop. So
as time evolved, the restoration work started becoming more a
(02:34):
larger and larger part of our business, of course. And
so but we've been building engines in house now specifically
mostly AMC engines for over twenty years, and we're encountering
an inability to have timely machine shop work done so
that we can get engines done on a timely basis.
Imagine coming and asking us to build your engine and
(02:55):
I tell you I probably can't have it done for
you for two years.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Wow?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Now is that is that a you know, you don't
have the manpower, you don't have the material, you both
the floor space. You know what exactly creates that two
year backlog? It just pure demand because there's nobody else.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Yeah. So we're a specialty engine builder and we build
engines for people all over North America, even some in Mexico,
a couple over in Europe. And so we have the inventory.
We have the parts we need because we've been doing
this for a long time, but we can't find I've
been advertising now for months to have a new engine builder,
(03:37):
and that new engine builder challenge is significant, and I'm
unable to find anybody do that. But more importantly, I
can have stuff at a machine shop for four or
five months before I get it back. I had one
block at a machine shop for a year and I
had to hound them to get it back, and when
I got back it was ruined.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
And these are not engine components and parts that are
easily replaced, correct, I mean to ruin a factory block
that was probably from a numbers matching something right.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
So thankfully AMCs are date code correct, So as long
as you get a block with the same date, you
can technically be date code correct. But yeah, nobody else,
nobody makes them. You either it becomes a boat anchor
or a pay a very big paper weight, or it
goes to the scrapyard.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
So you know, so as it stands right now, you
are not going to take on any separate engine work.
It's got to be the whole car or nothing. And
then how long do you foresee that if somebody brings
you a whole car and says, Dan, I want you
to do a whole car at at your azy amc
restoration shop. You know how long before you get to
the next car. You know how big of a backlog
(04:44):
is there to do cars?
Speaker 2 (04:45):
We have roughly a two year backlog. People are sending
in sizeable deposits to get a space in our queue,
and I tell them up front that it might be
as long as two years. Sometimes depending on people's individual circumstances,
it could be six months when they send the car,
and depending on what is needed. But as you probably
(05:05):
know from the industry, it's a very tedious and time
consuming process to restore a car because there's no way
for you to start on it and not do anything
else until you finish it. So you're kind of juggling
two or three or four restorations at the same time.
And then we for cash flow purposes, we bring in
short term repairs so that you know, you can go
months on a restoration and not make any progress. You're
(05:28):
not charging the customer or anything until you make progress. Right, Yeah,
we could. It could. It could be up to a
year and a half before your car gets in, and
there could be another year year and a half before
you get it back.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
So are you strictly doing AMC's American Motors Cars or
do you do other muscle cars, hot rods, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
So I like to say that AMC could stand for
American Muscle Car or it stands for American Motors Cars.
So we do. We We are specialized in the AMCs
because we are probably one of the places that knows
them the best. And that's out of my own passion
because I bought a nineteen sixty at AMX when I
was eighteen years old, and within eighteen month I had
the fastest car around. So I grew to like them.
(06:08):
And so we have a Pontiac Firebird four hundred and
there that we built a four to sixty eight Stroker
for and upgraded to a TKX five speed. We have
a really cool nineteen seventy five Oldsmobile four four two
that we're just finishing up now. And we've done corvettes
and so we we do other cars, but we're known
for our AMC restorations.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
So what's the answer. Is there an answer? Or let
me ask the question this way. Exactly where in Arizona
are you can you tell us.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yeah, So we're just a little bit west of Phoenix.
So when people come in to see if they fly
into Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport jumping an uber and they're
at our place in twenty a twenty five minutes, all right,
is the little town called Peoria.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Are there any other machine shops in and around Peoria?
Or are you basically the machine shop?
Speaker 2 (06:58):
So we're not actually a machine shop. That's the one
function that we actually use third parties for, gotcha, and so,
but that's only for things like grinding crankshafts, which is
a very dirty and cumbersome job, boring cylinder blocks, align
honing the main journals, decking the top of the block
for a good cylinder head seals. So those are the
(07:18):
kind of things we outsourced, but we do all the rest.
We balance and blueprint in house. Every engine. We require
if we're going to build you an engine, that we
blueprint it, and that way we give you a basically
and unconditional warranty unless it comes in and you've got
a bunch of vent valves because you overhebbed the heck
out of it and you had pistons and valves whacking
each other. So there are other places to go. But
(07:39):
the challenge is there's so few of them left that,
as I said earlier, you could have an engine block
somewhere for six months.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
What's the you know? And I'm just trying to paint
a picture of the area, right is you know here
in North Jersey, I'll say it like this here in
New Jersey. In North Jersey, if we tell somebody you
need four tires and a set of brakes, it's not
uncommon for them to say, I'll just go buy a
new car. Is is is that Peoria? Is that Arizona?
Speaker 2 (08:10):
So we specialize in you know, thirty, probably forty to
sixty year old cars, and so that's a different client
tell than what you're describing. These are people who always
wanted this car their whole life, and that they realizing
COVID caused this. They're realizing they're getting on in years
and they better get to it or they might not
be around to do what they always want to do
(08:31):
or had One guy whose dad bought this car brand new.
He remembered driving it around in nineteen seventy one Javelin AMX,
remember driving it around around in and as a child,
his dad got dementia. It brings tears in my eyes.
So the guy restored the car and brought it to
his dad. Now Dad couldn't remember which foot to put
(08:53):
his shoe on, but he remembered every single time car Yeah, yep, yeah,
Cooper Cobra GT radios on it. And Dad yelled at
the sun because they're supposed to have good year polyglass, right.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Isn't Isn't that amazing? Isn't that amazing? But when you
drive around Peoria, and I'm sure you look at repair shops,
you know, car guys tend to look at repair shops.
What are they working on?
Speaker 3 (09:13):
What are they doing?
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Is the fleet out there older? Are people inclined to
replace vehicles or are they more inclined to repair vehicles.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
It's a really good question. So it's it's a zychotomy.
So Arizona Phoenix is the fifth largest city in the
country now. So one of the attractions to Phoenix is
that the Phoenix area is it's affordable and the taxes
are low. So you've got a mix of new, young
urban people that are professionals and they're all in the
fancy new cars. And then you've got a mix of
(09:43):
the older retired folks that are just hanging onto a
car because they came somewhere it was inexpensive to live,
and they don't want to be spending a lot of
money on new cars. So it's kind of fifty to
fifty right.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Right, right?
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Hey, Dan, can you you got time to hang around
a little bit more? I want to pull over take
a pause when we come back, if you can stay,
I want to talk a little bit about so we've
we've laid out the problem, maybe we can talk about
the solution and see what we can see what we
can come up with. I'm Ronny and the Car Doctor.
I'm joined this hour by Dan Curtis. He's the owner
of A Z A mc Restorations out in Peoria, Arizona.
And we'll both return right after this.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Don't go away, Welcome back.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Listeners want to any of the car Doctor, I'm here
with Dan Curtis, the owner of A Z A mc
Restorations out in Peoria, Arizona.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Correct, Dan, that is correct.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
And we were talking about the issues from your Facebook post,
your social media post talking about, you know, problems finding
a machine shop, reputable machine shop, quality work, getting it
done in a timely manner. All the issues that you know,
is there a solution? Is there an end to this
insight where we're going to be able to find machine
shops again?
Speaker 2 (11:13):
So this is a very good question. I just as
a result of that same post on social media, a
fellow who has a racing engine machine shop here in
Phoenix is sixty one years old and call me up
because we've done business with him before, but he specializes
in racing engines. Asked me if I wanted to buy
his beautiful shop, and he's got a couple of million
(11:35):
dollars worth of equipment in it. It's like a data
center floor. It's immaculate, and unfortunately I'm a bit older
than him, so I told him, although I'd love to,
it's probably not in the cards for me. So I
think what the bottom line is and where I'm going
with this is it's about the dollar. We have been
so used to the machine shop world being a good
(11:59):
value and relatively inexpensive part of an engine build. That's
not going to be possible anymore.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Right.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
I mean, this guy wanted if he wanted me to buy,
it was going to be millions of dollars to buy
his shop. And it's a racing business. So you know,
you can't charge one hundred dollars for decking the top
of a block when you've got a note for three
million dollars to buy the place right.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Right, And that machine that decks the block is how
many hundreds of thousands of dollars or thousands of dollars right,
it's it's it's return on investment. It just it has
to be practical.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
So it gets even worse than that. Now, all the
repair parts for those things are not made in the
United States anymore. So let's say you have this two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars boring and decking machine and
a part breaks on it. You might have to wait
three months to get the part because it has to
be made and then shipped over from China. So we're
at a crossroads. We either have to accept the fact
(12:57):
that it's going to cost a lot more for machine shop,
or or it's going to go away. I mean, those
are the two options. There's no in between. So I'm
hoping and expecting that the result of our not making
anything and having these foreign made parts be poor quality
will result in a reinvestment in our own manufacturing capabilities
(13:19):
without that we're at the mercy of a foreign country.
And we talked off air that you have some you
know your history buff and World War two buff. Imagine
getting in a war and relying on your enemy to
supply you with the parts for your war munitions and
your war equipment. Right, it's the craziest thing I've ever
thought of.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Do you have kids walking in the shop in our
last minute that are interested in this or no?
Speaker 2 (13:43):
So we're kind of a tour destination for the AMC faithful,
and then people in general, like you have heard about us.
So we get visitors all the time, not necessarily kids,
although they bring their kids with them who seem bored
because they're not on their cell phone. But we get
a lot of people that come in and just want
to see what we're doing, see the car as we're
working on, because there's not that many shops around that
do this stuff anymore.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
And there's just they're not coming in looking for a job,
was my question, Right, Yeah, no, that doesn't exist.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
No, not really, so very few. And then the ones
we have, the youngsters, have tried to hire and get
them to be an apprentice. Again, I hate to be
so generalized, but the cell phone is a big interference
with people doing their job these days.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
And it just it just keeps these kids from going
Hey Dan, real quick, last ten seconds. Name of the
shop web address.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
So it's www dot AMC musclecars dot com. And that'll
actually bring you to the Facebook page because it's easy
to put stuff on Facebook than it is to put
it on my website.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Perfect cool beans, Dan, thanks for joining us today. I'm
Ron An Ending and the car Doctor. We'll be back
right after this.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Can it be live in
Welcome back listeners, Ron and any and the Car Doctor
our next guest. This is a little different, right, you know.
This really came about I was up on social media
the past week or so and I started to read
this post from this gentleman in fascination because it emulates
what I've been saying the past ten or fifteen years.
(00:29):
We're here on air for what thirty three now, but
for the longest time, that there are no machine shops left,
that we're running out of places to take engines to
rebuild them, that it's not such a common everyday practice.
Dan Curtis, the owner of azamc Restorations, is running into
this problem in his portion of the business out there
in Arizona. I guess it is Dan. Welcome to the
(00:50):
Car Doctor, sir. It's Arizona. Correct, is where your shop is?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
That is correct? And yes, pleasure to be with you.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Thank you, sir, and we appreciate you taking the time.
Post started out it's the first paragraph. Due to the
dwindling supply of quality machine shops and very poor quality
after market parts, as well as a lack of people
interested in learning the engine building a machine shop trades,
which that's a whole other conversation. I regret to inform
(01:16):
our many followers and current as well as past customers,
that will no longer be taking on any new engine
build orders unless it's for a car we are restoring.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
You know, when you restore a car, they you know,
they say, hey, Dan, I want you to restore my
AMC vehicle American Motors, you know, a javelin or whatever,
and you know, just take the car and build it.
And now and then you were also doing engines. Somebody
could bring you an engine and say, hey, just build
the engine. You're saying, hey, no more, we got to
do the whole car or nothing, because we don't have
the resources to do just engine work anymore. Tell us
(01:50):
about that.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
So when we first started, we actually were an engine
building shop to start with. And then as time progressed,
people started asking us to help them with more and
more things. And I had a collection of AMC cars
on my own, and they would see my cars and
they would say, can you make my car, my Javelin
or AMX or Ramble Scrambler as good as yours? And
I said, sure, we can do that. So I ended
(02:12):
up buying a shop thinking it was going to be
both a mechanical and a body shop, and as you
probably know from being in an interest for yourself, they're
not very compatible. So I ended up buying a second
shop a couple hundred feet away, So we now have
a paint and body shop in a restoration shop. So
as time evolved, the restoration work started becoming more a
(02:34):
larger and larger part of our business, of course. And
so but we've been building engines in house now specifically
mostly AMC engines for over twenty years, and we're encountering
an inability to have timely machine shop work done so
that we can get engines done on a timely basis.
Imagine coming and asking us to build your engine and
(02:55):
I tell you I probably can't have it done for
you for two years.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Wow?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Now is that is that a you know, you don't
have the manpower, you don't have the material, you both
the floor space. You know what exactly creates that two
year backlog? It just pure demand because there's nobody else.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Yeah. So we're a specialty engine builder and we build
engines for people all over North America, even some in Mexico,
a couple over in Europe. And so we have the inventory.
We have the parts we need because we've been doing
this for a long time, but we can't find I've
been advertising now for months to have a new engine builder,
(03:37):
and that new engine builder challenge is significant, and I'm
unable to find anybody do that. But more importantly, I
can have stuff at a machine shop for four or
five months before I get it back. I had one
block at a machine shop for a year and I
had to hound them to get it back, and when
I got back it was ruined.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
And these are not engine components and parts that are
easily replaced, correct, I mean to ruin a factory block
that was probably from a numbers matching something right.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
So thankfully AMCs are date code correct, So as long
as you get a block with the same date, you
can technically be date code correct. But yeah, nobody else,
nobody makes them. You either it becomes a boat anchor
or a pay a very big paper weight, or it
goes to the scrapyard.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
So you know, so as it stands right now, you
are not going to take on any separate engine work.
It's got to be the whole car or nothing. And
then how long do you foresee that if somebody brings
you a whole car and says, Dan, I want you
to do a whole car at at your azy amc
restoration shop. You know how long before you get to
the next car. You know how big of a backlog
(04:44):
is there to do cars?
Speaker 2 (04:45):
We have roughly a two year backlog. People are sending
in sizeable deposits to get a space in our queue,
and I tell them up front that it might be
as long as two years. Sometimes depending on people's individual circumstances,
it could be six months when they send the car,
and depending on what is needed. But as you probably
(05:05):
know from the industry, it's a very tedious and time
consuming process to restore a car because there's no way
for you to start on it and not do anything
else until you finish it. So you're kind of juggling
two or three or four restorations at the same time.
And then we for cash flow purposes, we bring in
short term repairs so that you know, you can go
months on a restoration and not make any progress. You're
(05:28):
not charging the customer or anything until you make progress. Right, Yeah,
we could. It could. It could be up to a
year and a half before your car gets in, and
there could be another year year and a half before
you get it back.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
So are you strictly doing AMC's American Motors Cars or
do you do other muscle cars, hot rods, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
So I like to say that AMC could stand for
American Muscle Car or it stands for American Motors Cars.
So we do. We We are specialized in the AMCs
because we are probably one of the places that knows
them the best. And that's out of my own passion
because I bought a nineteen sixty at AMX when I
was eighteen years old, and within eighteen month I had
the fastest car around. So I grew to like them.
(06:08):
And so we have a Pontiac Firebird four hundred and
there that we built a four to sixty eight Stroker
for and upgraded to a TKX five speed. We have
a really cool nineteen seventy five Oldsmobile four four two
that we're just finishing up now. And we've done corvettes
and so we we do other cars, but we're known
for our AMC restorations.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
So what's the answer. Is there an answer? Or let
me ask the question this way. Exactly where in Arizona
are you can you tell us.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yeah, So we're just a little bit west of Phoenix.
So when people come in to see if they fly
into Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport jumping an uber and they're
at our place in twenty a twenty five minutes, all right,
is the little town called Peoria.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Are there any other machine shops in and around Peoria?
Or are you basically the machine shop?
Speaker 2 (06:58):
So we're not actually a machine shop. That's the one
function that we actually use third parties for, gotcha, and so,
but that's only for things like grinding crankshafts, which is
a very dirty and cumbersome job, boring cylinder blocks, align
honing the main journals, decking the top of the block
for a good cylinder head seals. So those are the
(07:18):
kind of things we outsourced, but we do all the rest.
We balance and blueprint in house. Every engine. We require
if we're going to build you an engine, that we
blueprint it, and that way we give you a basically
and unconditional warranty unless it comes in and you've got
a bunch of vent valves because you overhebbed the heck
out of it and you had pistons and valves whacking
each other. So there are other places to go. But
(07:39):
the challenge is there's so few of them left that,
as I said earlier, you could have an engine block
somewhere for six months.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
What's the you know? And I'm just trying to paint
a picture of the area, right is you know here
in North Jersey, I'll say it like this here in
New Jersey. In North Jersey, if we tell somebody you
need four tires and a set of brakes, it's not
uncommon for them to say, I'll just go buy a
new car. Is is is that Peoria? Is that Arizona?
Speaker 2 (08:10):
So we specialize in you know, thirty, probably forty to
sixty year old cars, and so that's a different client
tell than what you're describing. These are people who always
wanted this car their whole life, and that they realizing
COVID caused this. They're realizing they're getting on in years
and they better get to it or they might not
be around to do what they always want to do
(08:31):
or had One guy whose dad bought this car brand new.
He remembered driving it around in nineteen seventy one Javelin AMX,
remember driving it around around in and as a child,
his dad got dementia. It brings tears in my eyes.
So the guy restored the car and brought it to
his dad. Now Dad couldn't remember which foot to put
(08:53):
his shoe on, but he remembered every single time car Yeah, yep, yeah,
Cooper Cobra GT radios on it. And Dad yelled at
the sun because they're supposed to have good year polyglass, right.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Isn't Isn't that amazing? Isn't that amazing? But when you
drive around Peoria, and I'm sure you look at repair shops,
you know, car guys tend to look at repair shops.
What are they working on?
Speaker 3 (09:13):
What are they doing?
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Is the fleet out there older? Are people inclined to
replace vehicles or are they more inclined to repair vehicles.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
It's a really good question. So it's it's a zychotomy.
So Arizona Phoenix is the fifth largest city in the
country now. So one of the attractions to Phoenix is
that the Phoenix area is it's affordable and the taxes
are low. So you've got a mix of new, young
urban people that are professionals and they're all in the
fancy new cars. And then you've got a mix of
(09:43):
the older retired folks that are just hanging onto a
car because they came somewhere it was inexpensive to live,
and they don't want to be spending a lot of
money on new cars. So it's kind of fifty to
fifty right.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Right, right?
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Hey, Dan, can you you got time to hang around
a little bit more? I want to pull over take
a pause when we come back, if you can stay,
I want to talk a little bit about so we've
we've laid out the problem, maybe we can talk about
the solution and see what we can see what we
can come up with. I'm Ronny and the Car Doctor.
I'm joined this hour by Dan Curtis. He's the owner
of A Z A mc Restorations out in Peoria, Arizona.
And we'll both return right after this.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Don't go away, Welcome back.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Listeners want to any of the car Doctor, I'm here
with Dan Curtis, the owner of A Z A mc
Restorations out in Peoria, Arizona.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Correct, Dan, that is correct.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
And we were talking about the issues from your Facebook post,
your social media post talking about, you know, problems finding
a machine shop, reputable machine shop, quality work, getting it
done in a timely manner. All the issues that you know,
is there a solution? Is there an end to this
insight where we're going to be able to find machine
shops again?
Speaker 2 (11:13):
So this is a very good question. I just as
a result of that same post on social media, a
fellow who has a racing engine machine shop here in
Phoenix is sixty one years old and call me up
because we've done business with him before, but he specializes
in racing engines. Asked me if I wanted to buy
his beautiful shop, and he's got a couple of million
(11:35):
dollars worth of equipment in it. It's like a data
center floor. It's immaculate, and unfortunately I'm a bit older
than him, so I told him, although I'd love to,
it's probably not in the cards for me. So I
think what the bottom line is and where I'm going
with this is it's about the dollar. We have been
so used to the machine shop world being a good
(11:59):
value and relatively inexpensive part of an engine build. That's
not going to be possible anymore.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Right.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
I mean, this guy wanted if he wanted me to buy,
it was going to be millions of dollars to buy
his shop. And it's a racing business. So you know,
you can't charge one hundred dollars for decking the top
of a block when you've got a note for three
million dollars to buy the place right.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Right, And that machine that decks the block is how
many hundreds of thousands of dollars or thousands of dollars right,
it's it's it's return on investment. It just it has
to be practical.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
So it gets even worse than that. Now, all the
repair parts for those things are not made in the
United States anymore. So let's say you have this two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars boring and decking machine and
a part breaks on it. You might have to wait
three months to get the part because it has to
be made and then shipped over from China. So we're
at a crossroads. We either have to accept the fact
(12:57):
that it's going to cost a lot more for machine shop,
or or it's going to go away. I mean, those
are the two options. There's no in between. So I'm
hoping and expecting that the result of our not making
anything and having these foreign made parts be poor quality
will result in a reinvestment in our own manufacturing capabilities
(13:19):
without that we're at the mercy of a foreign country.
And we talked off air that you have some you
know your history buff and World War two buff. Imagine
getting in a war and relying on your enemy to
supply you with the parts for your war munitions and
your war equipment. Right, it's the craziest thing I've ever
thought of.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Do you have kids walking in the shop in our
last minute that are interested in this or no?
Speaker 2 (13:43):
So we're kind of a tour destination for the AMC faithful,
and then people in general, like you have heard about us.
So we get visitors all the time, not necessarily kids,
although they bring their kids with them who seem bored
because they're not on their cell phone. But we get
a lot of people that come in and just want
to see what we're doing, see the car as we're
working on, because there's not that many shops around that
do this stuff anymore.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
And there's just they're not coming in looking for a job,
was my question, Right, Yeah, no, that doesn't exist.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
No, not really, so very few. And then the ones
we have, the youngsters, have tried to hire and get
them to be an apprentice. Again, I hate to be
so generalized, but the cell phone is a big interference
with people doing their job these days.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
And it just it just keeps these kids from going
Hey Dan, real quick, last ten seconds. Name of the
shop web address.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
So it's www dot AMC musclecars dot com. And that'll
actually bring you to the Facebook page because it's easy
to put stuff on Facebook than it is to put
it on my website.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Perfect cool beans, Dan, thanks for joining us today. I'm
Ron An Ending and the car Doctor. We'll be back
right after this.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Can it be live in
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