Hot Rod Entrepreneurs, How's your business doing?

Hey Mike, (Andy from ChoppednDiced) The work is still here for us so far and we have quite a lot scheduled for the next month but we never count your eggs tell they are hatched (or they get towed in the shop)
PS I was also repairing a leaking A/C high side hose behind the dash also on that sweet 29 sedan, good ticket and a happy customer
later Andy

 

I don't have a shop but my parts sideline business is good. My buddy owns a tire shop and said business is up 30% this year. A friend who owns an engine shop is swamped all the time. but then again houses are still selling here although slower and for a little less money. Very low unemployment in Kansas. I think it is 2 or 3 percent.

 

I would think that the general repair biz is doing a bit better as the economy suffers, people can't buy brand new cars in trying times.

 

when people with money spend it... that's a good thing

when people with money squirrel it away... not so good

do any of you remember what happened to the boat industry for a few years when our wonderful GOV slapped the luxury tax on them? a lot of craftsmen and people that had been doing custom componentry and specialty pieces and parts went out of business or lost their jobs. i don't see much difference in the automotive side either. if a wealthy man can't do something he desires but you can and he's willing to pay you for it... then by all means do so.

[edit] the shop i work at makes authentic reproduction radiators for chrysler muscle cars... we can't make them fast enough... and they ain't cheap either.

 

Aside from the Auto industry (Big 3) and the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mack B.S. Is the economy really that bad? I know 1 person that is out of work right now, a co-workers wife that worked for loan officers. I work on industrial scales in the greater(?) Chicago area, and have been averaging 9 hours of Overtime a week for the entire year. I have been in this industry for 14 years, and we are busier than we have ever been. Companies related to the auto industry are slow, but the refractory and steel industries are booming. We actually have a hard time scheduling P.M. work at a few places, because they are soo busy they are working around the clock. I am not old enough (41) to remember any previous recessions or depressions in the the workforce, and maybe I'm just lucky to be in the right industry, but I am going to make more money this year than I ever have. My wife is a professor at Joliet Junior College, they worked out a new contract last year, and she too is having a banner year. My spending money right now is only limited by the fact that we did some serious remodeling to the house in the last 3 years (kitchen, Bathroom, Deck etc..) and my wife is going to grad school during the summers.

Back on topic, I usually do "Side Work" in the garage, but With all the OT I'm getting at work, I have actually been turning away work as I can't keep up with my own projects, let alone taking on others. So I guess My Hot Rod/Jeep business is taking a hit, but for reasons other than the economy.

 

lol, yeah if I could count them before the hatched I'd be hiring like mad...
Hell if I could just store people's cars until I could get to them I'd have work lined up for years.

 

Hey Michael, I'd take you in a minute but will they let you back in Ellis yet? Laughed my ass off when I read that.
Re: Hot Rod Entrepreneurs, How's your business doing?
<HR style="COLOR: #e5e5e5; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #e5e5e5" SIZE=1>Quote:
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=6 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=alt2 style="BORDER-RIGHT: 1px inset; BORDER-TOP: 1px inset; BORDER-LEFT: 1px inset; BORDER-BOTTOM: 1px inset">Originally Posted by BCR
Busy in Kansas. Can't find enough good help though.

I did pick up on the part where you put a check in the mail the next day. I'll take a chainer that will pay his bill on time over some guy that puts me in the bad position to have to call and ask.

P.S. anyone looking for work in this industry that is qualified p.m. me. Mike
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Not sure I am qualified but I do occasionally have a couple of hours on Sunday afternoons .....Business good in central Kansas also.
Mike

 

Got to love all the checkbook comments! Do any of you realize without guys and gals paying to have work done there would be no Hot Rod shops??? Who cares if someone is writing checks they are car guys otherwise they wouldn't be building the car in the 1st place. I would love to see the guys with all the comments turn down the work when it comes through their doors. So whos car would you be working on??? Post the name of your shop and explain you do not take in certain work. Word will get around and you will have nobody to bad mouth.


As for the economy I guess nobody has money invested??? I would brace yourself hard as if you do not think things are going to pop you will be in line a SS getting your stamps. Gas prices and home sales effect the ecomomy in a huge way. On look on EBAY and there are cars being given away.

I wish all shop owners the best but no preparing for what is coming is a huge mistake.

 

We build high end hot rods and street rods. We are booked solid for many years and have a sizable waiting list. We can't find qualified employees, just ones that think they are. We need complete skill sets with a high tolerance for long hours at low pay That's what it takes to survive in this builder business.

I thank the Lord each and every day for customers that can afford to have their car(s) built by us. I could care less what jewelry they flaunt. I do "get it" and I don't kiss anyone's ass, I just build the best things I am capable of building, and strive to improve my skills every day. Nice work will sell itself, we don't even have a sign outside our shop.

 

I agree with that statement. I'm 23 started my business last year around this time. I've expanded twice and 5 out of 7 cars in the shop are complete builds. Not so much hamb friendly but cool in my opinion. I've also had to hire two more guys in the last year. All my customers are business owners and such who love cars but lack skill and time to do it. Thats where i come in. And their all great guys that get really excited when they stop in. I'm just a car "drug" dealer feeding guys addictions

 

I've got a couple years worth of work on my "waiting list" as they call it. I work by myself and only do about one car at a time and sneak in the occasional 3-4 day repair job when I can. Most of the people I do work for are retired or close to that age. They don't seem to be cutting back the hotrod stuff so far.

My dad is a masonry contractor who is trying to retire. Even though the housing market is realy drying up and other contractors are getting desperate for work, he keeps getting talked into taking more jobs. The people he works for dont even flinch when he works for labor + material.

I believe if you do quality work and you charge a reasonable price, you will get by. Economic downturns are good once in a while because it "flushes" most of the hacks out of the trades.

Dave

 

interesting topic this.
I own a small parts shop in Perth Australia. I bought it as a normal run of the mill spare parts thing..........polish,general service parts,auto paint & tools etc.
Over the last 3 years I have added the hot rod and custom parts. I figured I would give the rod parts a shot, if it didnt work I would have plenty of parts to build my own cars.
I like the more HAMB friendly stuff myself, but its not as popular in my part of the world, so I sell a fair bit of street rod/street machine/muscle car stuff.
The aussie economy is supposedly slowing too, most parts shops I know are saying its the quietest in years.
We are still going pretty strong. I'm not making millions, but my wife no longer works fulltime (she was our state Senior Training officer for McDonalds Corp) and I see my kids more than when I was working in the building game.(but I did earn better money then)
I like going to work, I love all types of cars and like to meet the guys building them.
The 'gold chainers' are keeping me going, if it wasnt for them the rod parts I keep would be long gone. I have a few regular HAMB type guys who get the trad stuff I carry or order in.
Without the gold chainers most rod shops would not exist. Most rod parts retailers would be long gone too.
I cant afford to advertise in every magazine going, I have a pretty decent website I built myself using a $100 program. It took a hell of a lot of hours (3-4 hours every night for a month) just to get the basic format and then I update and add stuff every other week.
We give the best service we can and try to get our regular customers to tell their friends.
We try to provide the best service we can, we give advice or send the customer to where they can get that advice or part.
Customer service is king.
If your thinking about opening a business make sure your customers come first, recommendations from friends cost nothing.

I think that is keeping us going at present. We are surviving but it is tough times ahead I feel.

 

I have investments..

The kicker is that playing the redneck stock market (buying, selling and parting out cars) pays far better than any investment I've had.

200% ROI in two or three months is pretty damn good. If the parts don't sell they're just worth a little more next year.

Shawn

 

Not sure if I am a Hot Rod entrepneur.......but I am out there every week....

unlike the high end people.......I have to rely on sales of $15-$40. My business has been down about 15-20% this year. I have not had many $100 sales at all......used to be last year I would have 1 or 2 a show. Now I have had 1 in the past four shows.....

People just are not willing to let go of the $$$ the way they used to on little things.....

in addition, the "cheap" chinese products are going up in price on all the products we get.

The Rat Fink antenna toppers that I used to sell for $5 are now going up to $7

This is not cause I am a money grubbing scum (although I am....ha) - it is due to the fact that the U.S. $ is in the tank. We used to be able to go to China and say we want this for this price ............

well now the roles are becoming reversed and the US is not the big boy on the block anymore........not sure what we can do about this - except pay higher prices.

Glad to hear that the rich people are getting richer. Let's hope that the trickle down economics that has been drilled into our heads actually trickles down................feels more like I am getting pissed on though.

I am still paying my mortgage and health insurance - but it is getting tough.........if it gets any worse I may have to go get a real job.

Then you all wont see me at all the shows no more - wont that be sad.

Anyway - come out and gimme some of your hard earned $$$ at the Dallas Good Guys and the Hunnert.

It will be going to pay off tons of medical bills and credit cards that we had to load up this summer when our baby had her surgery.........

OK

Let's hope that '09 brings about the big turnaround and we all make a bunch more $$$ - WITHOUT the prices of everything else going up accordingly!

later

John Wells

 

I guess you missed the part where he said he sends the check out for the work the same day he gets the bill, and rounds it UP to the next grand?

Your reply to him was stupid. There's absolutely nothing wrong with being a customer and getting good service, and being treated like the business you're spending your money with actually WANTS your money, rather than being bothered to take the time of dealing with you.

The big mail order house I used to work for is hurting pretty hard. Part of that is because the boss is more concerned with being a rock star and building cars in the back shop than concentrating on the core business of selling parts. That's a HUGE part of it. The other part of their equation is that they're 20-40 percent more expensive than their competitors. On ten parts that I did press releases for, their price was higher for 8 of them than the prices the manufacturers posted on their website (Chassis, Glide Engineering seat frames, etc.).

I've heard Goodmark is also hurting very bad (Another Atlanta-based supplier of sheetmetal). But a relatively new company called AMD (also local) is spending a lot of money tooling up new Mopar sheetmetal, and they're selling as fast as they can stamp it. Here quality is winning the day, as the AMD stuff practically jumps out of the box and attaches itself to the cars. It fits like it is supposed to, with little massaging and modification. It's the natural progression of parts: the first ones didn't need to fit all that good, because they were the only game in town. Now competition is doing its thing in the market place; higher quality parts are being made to steal your dollars from the other guy. Competition works.

A guy I know that does sand blasting and sheetmetal work is booked up pretty solid.

An interesting observation I've sort of formulated (with no real "official" research to back it up); There are tons of finished cars on the market right now; expensive cars that are being sold at fire-sale prices. I'm thinking these cars were bought with Home Equity lines of credit. I've kept an eye on the '70-'73 Camaro market for my wife; cars that were selling two years ago for $35-$45,000 are now listed for $20-$25,000. That has driven the price of project and parts cars way down. Two years ago at Super Chevy, a basket case Camaro was $8-9,000. Last year the same quality of car was down to $2,500-4,000.

I think the guys who are having work done are probably paying in cash, not charging it. OR, they've got the cash in the bank, and it's liquid, rather than being tied up with their home as a second mortgage or home equity loan. If they're charging it, it's because they're earning frequently flier miles on their credit card and are paying the card off each month. Those guys will continue buying and spending. The people who are getting killed by the credit crunch and real estate down turn are the ones hurting.

Incidentally, I did do some research on this topic: Unemployment. The average unemployment under Bush's term was an all-time low. I'm not bitching about politics here, but when unemployment reached 5-percent under Clinton, it was haled as the greatest thing in the history of Presidents. When it hit 5-percent under Bush, it was the end of the world. Spots in the country (I'm thinking Michigan) are getting killed by unemployment, but overall, the "unemployment crisis" really isn't being fairly portrayed by the media. Even those who are totally biased must admit the media hates Bush, and loves a crisis. I've often thought the media drives the herd much more than people are willing to admit.

Additionally, I checked the unemployment figures for Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Canada--we're not only lower than all of them, but Spain, Italy and one other (I forget) have record low unemployment and it's still higher than ours.

You prune a tree to help it grow, you thin a heard to keep it healthy...if the government stays out of this, the healthy will survive just fine, while the weak (or stupid) will fall to the wayside. For instance, the illegal immigrant population in Georgia is going down, because the housing market has gone way down and they've gone back South. The downside is that a lot of them had mortgages on homes and they've walked away from them. Shame on the stupid banks for giving them mortgages.

Excellent post...I'd love to hear more about what people are experiencing.

But let's try to keep the petty class-warfare bullshit out of it. The people who have the money are the ones who pay the rest of us. That's why I LOVE rich people. The poor have never put a dime on my table.

-Brad

 

It's good to remember that generally the journalism graduates that write the news for print and TV are normally fresh out of school - with very little perspective and limited education about economic issues. Also, we've had it so good for the past 25 years that there is very little collective memory of what a bad time is. The economy is much more than the daily rumblings of the stock market. I think it is telling that more of us are operating on cash these days. To me, that's a good thing. Pay for what you can afford and pay upfront. God bless everyone that keeps the hot rod economy going - those that sell parts and services and those that buy those same things!

 

Good points regarding car prices. They are going to go way lower.

Wanted to make a couple points myself. Unemployment was both lowest under Clinton and Bush. It was 4&#37; when Clinton left office and 4% of course when Bush took office.

The fact is the true unemployment numbers are really skewered under the republicans and democrats both. That is, the unemployment numbers they put out are lower than the true unemployment. Neither party will never mention this because when they get back into office they use the same skewered calculation formulas to their advanatage.

For instance did you know laid off people from their job who are put into the Job Training Parternship Act under their local community college are counted as employed because the gov't is paying for their education? All smoke and mirrors.

The true inflation numbers are also skewered because they have been leaving out the M-3 figures for 10 years now about the same time when the gov't changed how they calculated unemployment numbers.

Kinda hard to compare our numbers with other countries because every country uses different variables.

Just as we cannot compare our GDP with China because China artificially undervalues the yuan and we have to take into account PPI.

 

I agree.

Seemed like an overly bitter response to me also.

 

As a business owner that kind of customer would get my attention immediately. And keep it.

 

This is a good link , I lived through the last big recession in the very early 90's I think it was I was working at Kugel Komps, no let up we stayed busy. So far Thankfully we at Limeworks have seen the product sales continue to grow & we have a shop full of cool projects . New projects this week inc re commisioning a 30 coupe (V8 60 ) built in 1948 & spending the last 50 yrs in a garage in Manhattan Beach !! & a 32 Ford Fordoor Hemi powered Hiboy full build from a great body & a full air ride & running gear in a 62 Impala Convertible.So fingers crossed everyone in our industry will be immune to the scare tactics from the Media & continue to be steady & or grow.

Long Live The Hot Rod Industry.

 

The Billetproof shows are right on target with the growth they've shown over the past 12 years. New shows are warmly received and well attended.

 

Being with a rod shop in the San Antonio area I have heard rumors That Vintage Air is getting ready to lay off employees , any of you guys out there work for Vintage Air have any clarification on this is this just a scale back or economy related
Later Andy

 

"A guy I know that does sand blasting and sheetmetal work is booked up pretty solid."

-Brad

Good to know i'm not the only one. I own Salisbury Sandblasting Service in Hutto. We're pretty much booked solid. Not as much hotrod stuff as i'd like, but with as much rusty stuff there is out there... I shouldn't be running out of work soon.

I wonder if the companies that cater to the masses during certain fads ever get hit really hard, or if they just change with the times.... anyone remember 22's with SPINNERZ??? lol

 

We've been steady. We are in the chassis business and possibly not as many people are starting new projects, but doing updates on some old ones. We are always building chassis but parts sales indicate that there are a lot of upgrades and repairs being done. After almost 30 years in the business I have seen a few economic slowdowns, you just have to be there when things start jumpin again.

 

Haven't heard about V.Air laying off, yet. I'll check into that for ya. As for the customers I do biz with here in Cen Tx, some are doing very well and others are charging cheepo prices to stay afloat.

The shops with upper class, millionaire and billionaire clients are busy. I spoke with one of my customers today who has one Billionaire (yes Billionaire with a capital B) who keeps him as busy as he wants with 2 cars in the shop and six others waiting. Another shop I do business with has a shop full of projects and more waiting, all high end jobs. His clients are way ahead of the game in terms of money so he'll be busy as long as they are alive.

I asked a customer today (he owns one of the largest auto salvage parts companies in the US) what he thinks of the Bailout/Rescue economic plan and how we will fare? His answer was, "If you've put ALL your money in one bank, the stock market or any one singular investment, you'll be hurt. Or if you don't have cash money under the floorboards you may be doing without the stuff you're used to." Not sure if that helps me but it's an idea.

I think the shops who doing excellent work and have earned their customers' respect will survive. Your customer feeds you, do good to them and most of the time they return the fav.

On my end, I've had a good year striping at car shows and even on the retail end. I usually gauge my economic outcome on how many people spend money on something they really don't need like pinstriping.

Hey I'm used to this, Pinstripers usually starve half the time anyway.

My advice for all you "Hot Rod Entrepreneurs" ... keep doing the best you can for the customers you already have, and if at all possible deal with clients who have the cash to pay you.

Most importantly, you hot rodders/customizers/car lovers are an innovative group. If you apply the same creativity and persistence as you do with with building cars and put that much effort into keeping your business alive then I think you'll not only survive, but maybe thrive when all the gloomers and give-uppers are dying a slow painful death.

Give your business all you got. Take thime to develop goals for yourself and your biz like a creative marketing plan to bring in new clients. Stay in touch your past and present clientele and prospective ones. Let them know how you are doing and that you are willing to do whatever it takes to keep the relationship going. Work with 'em.

And this is the really important thing, believe in yourself and what you are capable of accomplishing. Don't take no for an answer from yourself. This world has way too manny naysayers. Hot rodders (that goes for business owners and those who aren't) are tough. They should be the last ones standing no matter what happens.

Shut me up!!

Okay enuff of my preaching. I love this industry and respect and envy the people in it, I just have this weird need to help keep it alive.

Keep faith in yourself and let the world know you ain't gonna be brought down with the rest of them loozers.

Mikey
www.MikeysPinstriping.com
"I Do Bad things To Gloom & Doomers"

 

The guys on here who have the brains to do this sort of thing for a living or even as a sideline business will be fine.

Anyone with the smarts to be their own boss already has a good work ethic and knows how to work hard enough at something to keep a roof over their heads and food on their plates.

We might not be millionaires but we will all survive. There are other things I can do to make money that aren't car related (besides man-whoring).

It's the people who inherited daddy's business and have it already halfway in the ground and the people who think the world owes them something that will be hurt the most. Hell, it might even teach them a thing or two.

Shawn

 

not good here people in this area are tight wads that look down on old vintage tin.to them i'm white trash haa fuck em all

 

Thanks for resurrecting this thread for that insightful commentary.

 

Some of the shops I do biz with are busy. Just sent a repaint on a very clean 32 to one shop at $20k. It really did not need done but wants to keep it fresh, the guy never complained about the price. T

The shops who have kept the mature street rodders happy are busy. Same with me, I have my regulars who buy new trucks and cars and they all want striping and every year at rod runs and shows many have repaints and new rods needing lines.

Stand by your work, be honest, become an advocate for them, offer advice, help them realize their dreams and they will always come back no matter the price. Happy customers are the life line of your business.

Mikey
www.mikeyspinstriping.com
www.motorvating.com
"Failure should not stop you...go do what matters...maintain your success"

 

Here's an update on the projects I farmed out to a couple of shops in 2009 just to get under lonewolfstreerods skin: Complete new interior in my Zipper and new paint on the '66 Olds Toronado. Also had some collision work on the '29 Ford extended cab PU.

Since this thread started 18 months ago, I'm becoming very concerned that some of the one man shops I deal with are not going to make it this year. I think that it has more to do with regional economies as to who's going to make it rather than the national scene. If you think the hot rod business is tough, be glad you're not dealing in pleasure boats!