Good to hear from you kitcarman!
Discussion
Hello Den!
It's Bart, (Willy Lambrechts' friend) the guy who was stupid enough to pay shitloads of money for a certain VW based replica project...
Good to hear from you! I spoke to Willy a few times over the past year or two and he told me you sold off Pilgrim. Sorry to hear that! I hope everything is going allright for you now
.
I more or less know what you have been through and know from experience how emotionally draining this can be...
I'm still bearing the scars from my experience and it'll be some time before we're back on top of things!
I wanna thank you again for all the interesting conversations we've had at some shows in Belgium, Holland and the UK
. Also have fond memories joining Willy on a few trips to Pilgrim where you allowed me to browse your archive of unsold magazines. I hope to meet up with you again some day.
Best regards,
Bart
It's Bart, (Willy Lambrechts' friend) the guy who was stupid enough to pay shitloads of money for a certain VW based replica project...
Good to hear from you! I spoke to Willy a few times over the past year or two and he told me you sold off Pilgrim. Sorry to hear that! I hope everything is going allright for you now
. I more or less know what you have been through and know from experience how emotionally draining this can be...
I'm still bearing the scars from my experience and it'll be some time before we're back on top of things!
I wanna thank you again for all the interesting conversations we've had at some shows in Belgium, Holland and the UK
. Also have fond memories joining Willy on a few trips to Pilgrim where you allowed me to browse your archive of unsold magazines. I hope to meet up with you again some day. Best regards,
Bart
when the second one arrived. 
. 
Sorry, I jumped the gun... 
Well, when we bought the project it was with the intention to gradually devellop it into a more faithfull reproduction.
To cut a long story short, we found out that we actually payed "a reasonable houses' worth" for absolutely nothing!
Three days after we had paid the money the UNINSURED
laminators place 'burned down' 
destroying all the molds. First thing we had to do was shell out for new tooling... and we didn't see a penny or as much as an apology.
Later we found out the number of sold kits wasn't as told us but more like a 10th of that amount...
Whilst the new moulds were OK they weren't what we wanted originally because due to the fire we didn't have time to do all of the improvements we intended. We only made some improvements which left us vulnerable to a constantly improving competition. Problem is that we had to spent our money on getting us back on the market whilst we intended to use that money for improvements to the car.
The original accountant (recommended to us because he was involved with GP before we bought it) suddenly decided to move abroad without telling us. We lost part of the accounts of two trading years (documents were never returned to us) consequently resulting in problems which you probably can imagine!
The industrial estate where we were located was suddenly sold off to a private company who gave everyone a notice for 3 months, resulting in dozens of companies looking for new premises in the same area pushing up prices skyhigh and forcing us to redo all pricelists and brochures.
We only found temporary shelter and after a year of plodding on decided to make a clean brake from it all and move up to Cornwall, a place we thouroughly enjoyed before. This is the only step we have not regretted since...
It's now 2 years or so that I moved our business next to Richard Oakes (BlackJack Cars) and we really get along very well.
He's learned me lots and we're always helping eachother out - we can share tooling as well.
We decided earlier this year to stop producing thecVW based kits for the moment and concentrate us on getting our more upmarked mid-engined version of the Porsche Spyder ready. It'll be more expensive, very accurate and we'll need to sell less of them to make a living.
Slowly we're rebuilding our business but because these problems above etc have drained us financially (and mentally too...) progress is very slow!
That's why we're quiet this year!
And how are you doing????
Well, when we bought the project it was with the intention to gradually devellop it into a more faithfull reproduction.
To cut a long story short, we found out that we actually payed "a reasonable houses' worth" for absolutely nothing!
Three days after we had paid the money the UNINSURED
laminators place 'burned down' destroying all the molds. First thing we had to do was shell out for new tooling... and we didn't see a penny or as much as an apology. Later we found out the number of sold kits wasn't as told us but more like a 10th of that amount...
Whilst the new moulds were OK they weren't what we wanted originally because due to the fire we didn't have time to do all of the improvements we intended. We only made some improvements which left us vulnerable to a constantly improving competition. Problem is that we had to spent our money on getting us back on the market whilst we intended to use that money for improvements to the car.
The original accountant (recommended to us because he was involved with GP before we bought it) suddenly decided to move abroad without telling us. We lost part of the accounts of two trading years (documents were never returned to us) consequently resulting in problems which you probably can imagine!
The industrial estate where we were located was suddenly sold off to a private company who gave everyone a notice for 3 months, resulting in dozens of companies looking for new premises in the same area pushing up prices skyhigh and forcing us to redo all pricelists and brochures.
We only found temporary shelter and after a year of plodding on decided to make a clean brake from it all and move up to Cornwall, a place we thouroughly enjoyed before. This is the only step we have not regretted since...
It's now 2 years or so that I moved our business next to Richard Oakes (BlackJack Cars) and we really get along very well.
He's learned me lots and we're always helping eachother out - we can share tooling as well.
We decided earlier this year to stop producing thecVW based kits for the moment and concentrate us on getting our more upmarked mid-engined version of the Porsche Spyder ready. It'll be more expensive, very accurate and we'll need to sell less of them to make a living.
Slowly we're rebuilding our business but because these problems above etc have drained us financially (and mentally too...) progress is very slow!
That's why we're quiet this year!
And how are you doing????
gpdude said:
Sorry, I jumped the gun...
No problem. It must have looked strange that I stopped posting when you started.
gpdude said:
Three days after we had paid the money the UNINSURED
. . .we had to do was shell out for new tooling...
. . .the number of sold kits wasn't as told us but more like a 10th of that amount...
. . .we had to spent our money on getting us back on the market whilst we intended to use that money for improvements. . .
The original accountant suddenly decided to move abroad without telling us. We lost part of the accounts of two trading years (documents were never returned to us) consequently resulting in problems which you probably can imagine!
The industrial estate where we were located was suddenly sold off to a private company who gave everyone a notice for 3 months . . .
Difficult to know what to say to all that….
gpdude said:
I moved our business next to Richard Oakes (BlackJack Cars) and we really get along very well.
We decided earlier this year to stop producing the VW based kits for the moment and concentrate us on getting our more up-market mid-engined version of the Porsche Spyder ready.
Slowly we're rebuilding our business but because these problems above etc have drained us financially (and mentally too...) progress is very slow!
That's why we're quiet this year!
Well, I wish you every success AND please keep me informed of progress. I’d be very happy to get the good part of the news into Kit Car magazine.
gpdude said:
And how are you doing????
Emmmm!!!! Have been through the mill, but there’s always somebody in a worse situation.
Keep smiling!
Den.
Thx for the kind words!
I'll keep in touch, don't worry!
As for BlackJack Cars...
I can only tell you things are going great.
What's been happening is that it is essentially a one man company and that causes some troubles.
Let me explain.
Richard Oakes is essentially a car designer who likes to produce a kit as well. He wants the variation between creativity of designing something and the skill of producing it.
Over the past few years he has thoroughly enjoyed designing, building and updating the BlackJack Avion. But after a few years he needs to get creative again and consequently he wants to create a new car.
Since he's mainly on his own, he has a difficult task in balancing his available time making Avion kits or parts and creating a new car.
To say it boldly, he's short of time and the Avion work is preventing him to spend more time on what he would really like to do: get on with his new car!
That's why he offered the Avion project for sale. If someone wants to continue with the project, he can spend more time on what he really likes now AND as a bonus it frees up some money for the new project.
If he doesn't find a buyer, he'll just continue as he does now but the new car will take longer.
BTW, the new one is absolutely fab!! Seen it, worked on it even... Prototype is almost ready to drive and quite a bit of tooling has already been produced.
It'll be ready for the new season I guess...
I'll keep in touch, don't worry!
As for BlackJack Cars...
I can only tell you things are going great.
What's been happening is that it is essentially a one man company and that causes some troubles.
Let me explain.
Richard Oakes is essentially a car designer who likes to produce a kit as well. He wants the variation between creativity of designing something and the skill of producing it.
Over the past few years he has thoroughly enjoyed designing, building and updating the BlackJack Avion. But after a few years he needs to get creative again and consequently he wants to create a new car.
Since he's mainly on his own, he has a difficult task in balancing his available time making Avion kits or parts and creating a new car.
To say it boldly, he's short of time and the Avion work is preventing him to spend more time on what he would really like to do: get on with his new car!
That's why he offered the Avion project for sale. If someone wants to continue with the project, he can spend more time on what he really likes now AND as a bonus it frees up some money for the new project.
If he doesn't find a buyer, he'll just continue as he does now but the new car will take longer.
BTW, the new one is absolutely fab!!
Seen it, worked on it even... Prototype is almost ready to drive and quite a bit of tooling has already been produced. It'll be ready for the new season I guess...
I'm pretty sure he wouldn't...
He's pretty much a loner these days... he's done all that employing stuff many moons ago and the responsability is just to high for him. He doesn't wanna get involved anymore. That's one of the reasons he moved to Cornwall, he likes things slow and quiet, just like me...
I'm sorry to dissapoint you.
Bart
>> Edited by gpdude on Friday 31st October 09:09
He's pretty much a loner these days... he's done all that employing stuff many moons ago and the responsability is just to high for him. He doesn't wanna get involved anymore. That's one of the reasons he moved to Cornwall, he likes things slow and quiet, just like me...
I'm sorry to dissapoint you.
Bart
>> Edited by gpdude on Friday 31st October 09:09
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