Builders,
Today, June first, marks the return of my traditional ‘direct’ work with Corvair builders. This story, and the accompanying video, will explain this in detail, but in very simple terms, I am returning to directly working with builders and making direct sales to them.
From 1989-2016, this is how I worked with builders. Essentially all the sales of my catalog parts were directly from me. Along the way, Clark’s Corvairs sold some of my parts which also served car people, and Woody Harris was my rep at west coast airshows, where he did distribute manuals to new builders. With these exceptions, all of the regular catalog items went directly from me to the hands of builders.
In 2016, I had a long planned, 7,000 mile tour of the US, that involved holding four Corvair Colleges along the way. (Back in Florida after 7,380 miles on tour.). Unexpected changes in my personal life, dominated by my father’s failing health, made a new parts distribution and support system an urgent priority. My old friends, Dan and Rachel Weseman, from Sport Performance Aviation, the Panther people, and I quickly reached a handshake agreement where they would distribute and support all the Corvair products in my catalog, in addition to their own line of Corvair conversion products. The agreement worked well, the College tour was a big success, builders got their parts and support, and most important, I spent a lot of irreplaceable time with my father in the last years of his life, and deal with losing him, a harsh period friends had warned me of, but I still underestimated. For the support of my friends Dan and Rachel during this, I will remain eternally grateful.
Today, I restart my direct work with builders. Dan and Rachel will still work directly with builders, and they will offer support for their full line of Corvair Conversion parts, Billet cranks, 3.0 and 3.3L kits, 5th Bearings, cylinder head work, rework of forged 8409 cranks, EIB kits, a host of smaller parts and airframe installation components for airframes such as the Panther and the Sonex. I have an all new products page, using modern e-commerce format to sell and deliver all of my own products directly . I will directly offer support on them.
This video further explains the return to my original sales and distribution model:
In a few days, I’m going to open the sign up for our giant November Barnwell Corvair College. Just like the previous nine Colleges there, it is a fully catered immersion event. There is a required registration, and the College is ‘free’ but everyone attending pays for their share of the catering and hosts costs. This registration will appear as a regular item on my new products page. More news shortly.
- In the four SPA years, we did not directly sell nor deliver parts at Colleges and Airshows. There are reasons why the SPA business model precluded this. Going forward, I will return to directly selling parts to builders at all times, at colleges and at airshows. I will have plenty of inventory with me on trips, and my new e-commerce site will allow selling it at any location.
- Any builder who has a support question for any part in my catalog, should call me for technical information, no matter which distribution system he purchased it under. SPA was the primary tech support before, but this was not intended to be permanent , and it is reasonable that if I designed and made it, I’ll be the primary support no matter how it was distributed.
- We have a few items on order with the SPA system, and they will be filled through that system, for obvious accounting reasons. If you have one of these orders, understand that I’m working to complete it asap.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. If you still have any questions, just pick up the phone and call me, 904-806-8143, any time you like. I have anticipated speaking with a lot of builders this week, and I have the time to do so. Don’t hesitate to call or text.
William
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