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Parts catalog


jonlabree

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I have a 1 page listing of items that Barney Eaton offers.  Some interesting things on there.

I would publish it here but he may not want his competition to know his pricing strategy.  Contact him by PM and he should be able to send you a copy.

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I never intended to be a parts supplier............it happened mainly by accident, and the fact that no one else seemed to be interested.

I am a retired manufacturing engineer/problem solver for a fairly large company.    Even before retiring, I became involved with the Reatta and tried to help when people had a problem.

One example...a Reatta owner called one day saying he was having his seat redone and the lumbar bladder was shot, where could he get one?   I'm thinking that should be no problem and started looking around.

I was going to SEMA every other year and had a book listing all the vendors...so I started calling the people that sold seats....asking if they would sell lumbar bladders....the problem was most of them were using mechanical lumbar support but

they would give me a lead....that got me to a company in LA that was in the aircraft seat business.   Turns out they made the lumbar bladders for the Reatta (and some other GM cars)  the conversation lead to me asking if they had any and they did not

then I ask them if they still had the tooling and if they owned it,  and they did.   So then I ask if they would make some and they said they would but there would be a minimum buy.   We worked out a deal and then I was in the parts business.

That was around 2005, I purchased 50 new bladders at a very reasonable price.   I sold them at a very reasonable price but it took about 10 years to sell 50.   When I went to reorder, the company was out of business,  and I had no interest in finding

another source.

Most of the thing I sell started in a similar way.  I did convertible visor brackets until Kingsley Baker told me he was thinking about doing them....my response, go for it, I hate making them.  

I did several fixes for headlight arms/bellcranks,  published them (see www.reatta.net)  then found a production part for a Pontiac that could be reworked into a unit for the Reatta.   I contacted the supplier, he had the tooling,  and I had him run some new

steel parts for me (the set-up charge for that was $2,400 if I purchased 1 or 10,000) again I was not interested in selling parts but here was a chance to make a good part at a reasonable cost ....when the original bellcranks were last available from GM the bellcrank kit cost $180 for one side.    I sell my kit for $40.

One last story........the 1988-1989 Reatta floor mats were reversible.   I somehow go a lead on a company that made floor mats for GM,  think they were in NY state... got in touch with them and they were not interested in reproducing the Reatta mats...not enough volumn for them but they did say they had a lot of Cadillac floor mats that they would sell me cheap.   Turn out the Cadillac mats were like the early Reatta, were reversible and had the non-skid plastic grid on the back.   I told them I would be interested in the plastic grid but did not need the mats, so we ended the conversation.  A week later they called and said they were disposing of the Cadillac floor mats and wondered if I was interested in the plastic grids....and the answer was YES.    I don't remember how may I purchased but I ask them if they had a standard shipping box that would hold the grids,  they did,  I said fill it with grids and I will take them.    Again I was in the parts business.    PS I only have 1 or 2 of the grids remaining.

Bottom line,  I don't really care if I sell parts.........I like to solve problems.

 

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