Technical Is Offenhauser still in business?

For the past few weeks my local speed parts guy has been tying to contact Offy to order some breathers. Every time he calls he gets the automated answering service and leaves a message with the sales dept. He has yet to get a return call. He is puzzled because he has been dealing with them for 30+ years and never had this happen.

Any insider info? Are they on vacation or shut down for the summer or did they close up shop?

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https://www.facebook.com/OffenhauserSalesCorp/

Summer vacation this past week from the FB page.

Looking on their website their regular hours are 9 am to 4 pm for the store.
http://offenhauser.co/
That probably means you won't get them on the phone before noon Connecticut time.

 

Might be at the Nat's in Louisville?

 

Ok... not on FB so I wouldnt have known that. Thanks!

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I doubt that they' re closed up..When Fred passed away,his son Tae was in charge,,The last time I ordered and talked to Tae,He was getting to be as old as I am,,If Tae has completely retired,I'd bet he left someone in charge,but I don't know his name,,

 

Their FB page was up to date on the 29th showing a stack of fresh out of the molds six cylinder intakes. There was a note on top stating that they would be on vacation for this past week. No note of that on the website though. Scrolling though it it looks like someone keeps the fb page up to date on a regular basis. I actually found it by going to the website.

Sounds like the first shop I worked in in Texas in the 70's. The boss always went to the Gulf coast on a fishing trip the week of the 4th of July and the shop closed and everyone went on vacation that week. You didn't get to pick when you went on vacation and it didn't matter how long you worked there vacation was one week.

 

You'd think they'd spend a couple of minutes and change the message on their voicemail before they closed up for vaca. It's a simple process to set an "out of office" auto reply on your email too.
Common courtesy and a good business practice to your potential and existing customers. Won't leave anyone wondering/worrying what happened to you.

 

Offy is very much still in business. Though it's not easy to get stuff from them sometimes. I just got two carb adapters from them. I contacted them thru instagram and inquired if the adapters I wanted were still available. They got right back to me, and informed they had them instock and the best way to get them was to buy them thru summit and they would drop ship them. Summits website said they would be out of stock till Feb 2018, but offy said they had them. I ordered them thru summit and a week later they were delivered. Try looking on summits web site for what your looking for.

 

Thank you all for the replies. Im going to try them tomorrow.

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Not to be PC, but this sounds like the proverbial "Chinese Fire Drill".

 

I can't answer the question but I can say that someone at Offy has been posting beautiful pics 3-4 times a day on instagram
and it sure looks like they're in business to me. I sure hope so.


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They seem to be just barely in business for the past several decades.

I visited their shop back in the '80s and asked about a 3 x 2 intake for my Cadillac that they no longer listed. The man I spoke to said that they couldn't make that intake anymore because the patterns for the cores went missing - so they could only cast solid intakes!

 

I went ahead and ordered the breathers on Summit. Apparently they get drop shipped directly from Offy. Hopefully I won't have to wait 6 months for them. Thanks for all the replies

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Be sure and let us know how it turns out.

 

Tell me about it. But I figured I would take the chance. They were 35 bucks apiece from summit and could not find them anywhere.

 

Lots of suppliers are so involved with the manufacturing process that it is often easier to get their parts through their dealer network. Some, read that many, are just not geared up to take orders, fill orders, ship orders, maintain the inventories that a Summit or Jegs, etc. are capable of doing.

 

The good news about purchasing through Summit is if something goes wrong at least you'll get a refund. Contacting Offenhauser seems to be an issue.

Gary

 

Ofenhauser products are available from a limited number of sources and to the best of my knowledge, has never sold direct in the past 30 years. Speedway has the largest selection of Offy products. However, not all Offy branded products sold by Speedway are made in Alhambra CA. Nor are they made in China!!

 

I had an Offy 360 manifold on a 302 Ford, thought it was a great piece, wish I had of kept it when I traded the car off. Got an Edelbrock Performer 289 for cheap off of eBay for the current 302, should be fine for street driving. Want to get my hands on a 2x4 or 3x2 Offy for a 302 Ford one of these days, hard to come by used, pricey new. Not in any hurry though, still haven't got it to a running state anyways.

 

This company was a main distributor for Offenhauser and is listed as an Alliance Vendor here but it seems they went belly up last year. http://www.exeterautosupply.com/index.html

 

I still order parts directly from Offenhauser. They are very difficult to get a hold of and they rarely return messages you leave. You have to know when to call and who to talk to to get something ordered. I have two cases of parts coming this week.

 

They seem to have a mighty peculiar way of doing business.

They will grudgingly sell parts if you bug them enough.

 

Even "back in the day" the Offenhauser family never was big on promotion or advertising like Edelbrock was,it's hard to be a major player if you don't get in the game. I've always been curious what ever happened to the intake manifold molds from Almquist intakes. (check out their catalogs in The Jalopy Journal)

 

Speedway carries a lot of Offy stuff. Maybe they have what you need.

 

Iron Trap Garage on YouTube has a video of their recent visit to Offenhauser. it has a shop tour and an interview of the owners talking about their plans for the company

 

They seem to be very active on social media now - constantly showing the shop in operation and making things that they say they haven't in years - saw them machining a new Cad 3x2 intake the other day. Haven't ordered direct from them, but it seems like they're trying to remind people that they are, in fact, still in business. I saw something on a recent thread about Alliance Vendors with Ryan saying he's spoken to them, and they claim that everything (everything) in the old catalog is available.

 

I have sent a couple of emails to them in the last month trying to buy a specific part from them. I have gotten no response. I guess I'll have to call them, even though "Telephone Tag" is not my favorite game.

 

That's excellent! Thanks for posting all of this.
I have some old Offy valve covers for my '65 Vette that were chromed way back when, but the chrome is peeling off. I wanted to get them rechromed, but didn't want the look changed, as in too smooth where it should be the rough as-cast finish. Now at least I know there are options.

 

Thx for posting the video, quite interesting, but the background music was, to this old fart with poor hearing, louder than the voices of the guys talking. This made it a bit difficult to figger out at times what was being said.
But I gather that these new owners are determined to continue the name Offenhauser along with the traditional way of manufacturing the parts on old and almost obsolete equipment.
Being a semi retired machinist with over 50 years in the trade, I watched the birth of automation in machine tool use start with the old "tape controlled" machines on up to the highly sophisticated CNC machines of today.
These machines not only reduce the human involvement in machining,they radically reduce the time required to machine to a finished part and make financially feasible pieces and parts just not available in years past to the average hot rodder. Things like aluminum heads for ohv engines , blocks, cranks, and other parts that a few years ago were way out of the cost range of the average hot rodder.
Automated machinery is however, very expensive and it takes a lot of volume to amortize their cost. Takes advertising and merchandising to get that volume, and the difference between the Offenhauser of today, compared with for instance, the Edelbrock of today should be enlightening as to the value of that advertising and merchandising, since they once were about equal;.
As the owner of a few of the old machine tools in my shop, it makes my heart feel good to see them in use in a business, rather than in a hobby shop like mine. But in the cold light of day, my brain can see these young men have a tough road ahead to compete in today's marketplace, and I wish them well.

 

Just got my Offenhauser order a few minutes ago. 2 large boxes of parts. Granted it took about 3 months to get them so when I need more I give them plenty of lead time.