Hello all

[Guy Mayers]

Thank you for the explanation Craig, probably more than was necessary but a useful insight for customers to realise what hurdles the manufacturers have to leap over or stumble through for every kit! I guess this means you have to hold significant stocks in fairly low numbers, sufficient for 3 or 4 builds to achieve your goal of supplying turnkey or minus cars. The chances of getting "just in time" suppliers in this industry must be zero!

Gerry is in a slightly different position but is beholden to sub contractors and Brexit has had an effect. Chronosport in Italy appear to have copied his bodies and are now putting them on an in house designed chassis, a situation that seems to have arisen due to increasing demand in Italy (and maybe Europe) and and unwillingness on Gerrys' part not to supply them with kits at the drop of a hat, pushing other customers down the waiting list. Whether Chronosport become a serious competitor to either Hawk or LB in the future we don't know but I suspect not. The likelihood is that some bureaucrat in Italy will stamp on the practice of making a replica there? They do now have an advantage selling into Europe thanks to Brexit though but how long will it take them to build the reputation of Hawk or LB? Who knows? Furthermore I don't know if this has soured the relationship Gerry has with them to the point of not supplying parts to them?

I also get what you're saying on shipping costs, especially worldwide but I think Hawk is a slightly different business model in that Gerry supplies the base kit and customers return to him for additional parts as builds progress. Obviously the customer pays additional shipping costs this way.

Guy

[Motorsport Minion]

Speaking on behalf of LB then it is a combination of all of the above.
The LB order list had got rather long before Covid ever came along and staff levels had also been increased accordingly to help cope with demand.
Then Covid came along and staff were put on furlough etc which clearly didn't help production.
Upon the return to work then half the staff then decided that they preferred to be paid to sit at home and do nothing and didn't actually need to work so that among with a few other staff scenarios halved the staff levels instantly.
New staff after covid were then hard to find partly because of our geographic location but also because no one wanted to actually work anymore. This seems to be a fairly common theme when you talk to other companies as well.
With less staff and still a significant order book, the new found supply chain issues & then Brexit thrown in to the mix as well has to have a negative affect on how things operate.
LB have always offered in house builds and because of some of the press received over the years then there has always been a strong demand for turn key or turn key minus projects, maybe from markets where kits aren't a familiar thing.
In reality some of the orders being processed currently are actually still kit based but the majority are now turn key or turn key minus.
There are arguments either way but because of the comprehensive nature of the LB kit mated to the supply chain issues brought about by Covid and Brexit then the parts availability for inhouse builds is currently more controllable than it is for kit supply. A prime example for us is wiring looms, since covid our previous supplier simply couldn't supply, we couldn't then find an alternative supplier who could get remotely near the price so we ended up tooling up & building the harnesses in house.
With the reduced staff levels we have we can make approx 10-12 looms a year when combined with other jobs which works well for inhouse builds but the demand for kits is much higher so we couldn't match those demands and also those of the inhouse builds as well. If we haven't got a wiring loom for an in house build we can simply move onto another element of the build or move on to a different car. The home builder cannot do this so his build would stall and that creates an issue.
With shipping costs having gone through the roof recently as well then it is also simply not viable to be posting follow on items out at a later date especially globally as parts then come back into stock.

Sorry for the essay

Craig

Hi Craig,

Another newbie here and on your waiting list too, thanks for taking time out to clarify what must be a frustrating situation for your company

From experience delays are forgotten far more quickly than poor quality

This is why I'd rather patiently wait than try to build car that fights me until it's finished or sold on as an unfinished project

Please don't stop selling self build kits as I'm already started collecting bits