Re: 02 zl1's
I agree with you guys to a point; but, we really can't say how many Phase 2 or Phase 3 GMMG cars were or will be built because we are still building them. Again, Charlie's car is a good example . . . Yenko was still around 10 years later and that customer wanted to upgrade his Yenko and they did.
On a side note, there was a 1967 Shelby GT500 that was at BJ and the current owner restored it with an aluminum 427 race motor and the announcers said that Carroll Shelby authorized it and changed that car in his records now to be a 427 race aluminum motor car. I dont think 30 years later, a Shelby Mustang should have its paperwork redocumented. Joel could do that if he wanted to, so could Berger on their COPO Camaros, but those cars were built 35 years ago, and our cars are still new. We still have two ZL1's here that the customers have not picked up or taken delivery of. I don't think we should penalize any customer that didn't know about the engine upgrades when they bought their GMMG car or if they couldn't afford it then.
Anyway, for our cars, we agree to upfit GMMG customers cars as long as we are in business. It really is a service to those customers and we started to offer this service based on, "If we don't offer the upgrades someone else will," or the owners will probably do it themselves or have Katech, Lingenfelter or Moore Performance, etc, do it for them. And then what do you have ?? A Camaro by GMMG modified by someone else. As long as we do the modifications, then that helps further document the cars. We also supply Chevrolet with our VIN numbers and the engine packages so they can monitor them whenever a warranty claim comes up on one of our cars. So far, no major warranty claims have come up on our cars that might have alarmed Chevrolet, but they do like it when they can call me and I can tell them exactly what was done to a certain car.
We are not changing history, as far as our GMMG history goes because we are not done writing it. Yenko, Motion, Nickey, Dana, and Berger from the 60's and 70's are done with their history simply because that era is over and most, not all, of those performance dealers, and performance shops, are no longer in business.
The bottom line is that you are talking about asking GMMG to stop selling cars and engine packages so the others that have them will be the only ones. I don't think anyone would have asked Yenko to stop working on or building cars after 1969 back then, so the cars they built would be more valuable . . . If they did, then there would be no Dueces or Turbo Z's or Charlie's car would still be a base 427 car.
When GMMG goes out of business, we will close the books on these cars and then the customers will have to go elsewhere or do any further upgrades themselves. I really dont see us doing these upgrades forever to these cars, but for now, it is hard to say OK to some, but sorry to others. Most customers that have asked, know, that I wont build one car and say that it is the only one ever made, but I will say that it is the first . . . Seriously, the number of upgrades will slow down in the following years and the cars history as far as GMMG goes will be cast in stone or CD's. Until then . . . we will still offer the upgrades.
Thanks for your input and ideas. I have dated the engine upgrades so we can tell when they were done and if a new owner, or potential buyer of one of our cars, wants to know the specifics on a particular GMMG car, they can call us and get the info from our files. And NO, we don't charge a fee . . . maybe in 30 years someone will dig up our files and sell the info for big $$$. Probably not . . .
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