SpeedDirect Meeting
Monday, March 4, 2003
Is there anyone in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area that could let SpeedDirect borrow their early Mustang for a couple of weeks ??
Short Version:
Flew out to Texas to meet with SpeedDirect.
We spent four hours discussing Mustang and Ford kits
They kept my parts to re-engineer them properly for production.
They will build a business plan to get their management’s green light.
I will help with testing prototypes on real cars and generate more online interest.
Long Version:
It’s 2:30 in the afternoon and I just finished having lunch here in DFW, Texas with Eric and Randy from SpeedDirect.
Our meeting began this morning at 10:30 here at the hotel I’m staying. I flew in to DFW and picked a hotel near the airport. Eric and Randy insisted on driving here instead of my going out to their location. SpeedDirect is in Santo, TX, about an hour’s drive from DFW. So they saved me a long and expensive cab ride. I paid my own way, I only let them buy me lunch.
We took over a small conference room and set up our collection of parts to show and tell. I brought my entire collection of parts. I had made a shipping crate for my rack and parts that could double as a demonstration platform. The lid is drilled with mounting holes to bolt wooden 2x4’s to simulate the frame of my car. This enabled me to hang my brackets off the 2x4’s, and then install the rack and tie-rods as I would on the actual car.
In addition I had marked off and drilled several other sets of mounting holes for the 'passenger side’ 2x4 to simulate the various frame spacings from other Ford cars. In this way I was able to demonstrate the range of vehicles that an r&p kit would have to cover.
I explained to them the genesis of the whole idea as I was busy assembling the demonstration. I had also brought along a bunch of pictures, the same ones that are on the website. For the next three hours we dissected my installation and played with the demo model.
We compared my demo to their production version for the Corvette. We discussed the value of using Heim joints instead of 80’s vintage Ford tie rods, adjustable center links, and tie-rod taper. We spend a lot of time talking about geometry and the variations across the Ford line in the 60’s. I gave them my ideas on producing two kits, a bolt on for the Early Mustang, and a cut-to-fit for the rest of the Ford cars.
They had lots of good questions about how I had made the design decisions I did. I made a point of giving credit to all those that worked on this idea before me. I also told them that there are a huge number of people in the online Mustang and Ford communities that are very anxious for a reasonably priced kit to be available.
The conclusion of our meeting came when we were all too hungry to continue. They asked to borrow my crate and all the parts. The design work that I have already done will enable them to build their own prototypes. In addition, their next step is to build a business case for the ‘Early Mustang’ and ‘Other Ford’ kits. If they get the green light from their business people, we will hopefully see kits for Christmas ’03.
We are going to stay in touch, as there will be issues to come up as they re-engineer the whole thing. I’m hoping to act as their bridge to the online community and act as test-installer for their prototypes. I feel good about the process; they want to do this right.
It seems like this project has been going on forever, but it is nearing the end. While it does seem that Christmas is a long way off, SpeedDirect wants to make sure that they put out a quality product that’ll hold up to all the fun driving we want to do