If anyone here is interested, I met a young man at the NSRA show in Pueblo co. Saturday, He and his family purchased the rights to the genie shifter and are setting up production in granby colo for more info contact them at 1-877-742-6643, if I have this wrong try 1-877-7-gennie, or local 303-623-1963. I did get to talk to them for quit awhile and I do believe they are in it for the long run. they are probably already building them, but I did not ask. one of the problems of getting old. Mike
Thats good to hear. Production has been in Granby for several years now, just had to get lucky to get someone to answer the phone. Id heard the company was for sale during that period too. Nice to know someone got ahold of it and might run the company like it should be ran
Just footnote they did lose their house in the fires that swept through area, that is probably what is slowing down everything Mike
Just thought I'd post this so both the Gennie Shifter threads could be cross referenced. History - GENNIE SHIFTER 1982 an AMAZING year! | The H.A.M.B. (jalopyjournal.com)
Thanks Jack for posting the link about the history of Genny Shifter, but my post got deleted. What I will say is that in one years time, 1982, my brother Tom Phipps, designed, marketed, and sold between 1200-1500 shifters and won the NSRA product of the year award. 1982 WAS as Amazing year for Gennie Shifter Company! We'll see if this gets deleted too.
I spoke with the family at the Good guys show in Salt Lake City. The husband was out making contacts. The wife, daughter and son were all very excited about the business. They had just moved all the shop equipment to their place and were trying to get the original phone number back as they had a large supply of boxes with that phone number printed on it. It was nice to see fresh faces so excited about the hobby and it’s future.
I hope they can do just that. When Tom made the prototype, he got bids on all the pieces separately from shops all over San Gabriel Valley. Our shop made all the machined parts for the shifter, parking brake, throttle, and headlight bar right up to when Tom sold the business. I had a lot of over run parts on the shelf to cover Tom if they ran short of something, and needed to get a quick order out. Rather than throw them out I ask Todd Gold if he would like them for .50 on the dollar so I could at least get my material cost out of the inventory. Todd told me, in no uncertain terms, he planned to "raise the quality", and have everything made in house. He got himself in deep shit and in about 6 months was calling Tom's vendors asking if any of us had any pieces "in stock". I took great pleasure in telling him I had a ton of shit that I had offered at half price, but he had refused it. He said he would be glad to take it now. I then told him that after he rudely refused my offer, every last piece, including all the tooling went to my scrap metal buyer. God, did I enjoy that!
Maybe someone could explain the difference between the old Gennie shifters and the new ones made a few years ago. I have one in my RPU, controlling my C4. I actually just ordered the shifter and mounted it on the Lokar mounting brackets that I already had on the transmission. I then threw the Lokar shifter in my scrap box to show what I thought of it. The Gennie shifter I have is working flawlessly. Love it.
After reading all this, I dug up the April '80 and January '82 issues of Street Rodder that covered Tom's Street A and Street B cars. A lot more talent there than merely shifters.
Another product my brother Tom designed and marketed at Gennie Shifter was the stainless headlight bar, first seen on his '30 roadster Street A. I don't know if they're still being sold, but I see a lot of them out there. I also used one (modified) on my T RPU, and I can attest to the quality.
I have called the # that was listed here on hamb, No response. I would buy one if they are now avaible. Don
You are too kind Tman. A--hole fits him much better. And I am not the only former vendor that feels that way.
I don't know about now-a-days; but in the past I bought two Gennie Lo-stick shifters; they were complete with mounts and linkage. The levers were sold separately; in my cases I welded an adapter to original Ford levers and had them plated.
Had to narrow the rear of the mounts to fit the stock transmission opening on my '35. Also hung a '35 emergency brake lever with a Model A ratchet on the side of the mount.
I had the pleasure of meeting Tom on a trip to LA. We had been up the the NHRA hot rod reunion in Bakersfield where I picked up a used C4 Gennie shifter in the swap meet. We went by Gennie "World Headquarters" and found Tom out working in the garage. Showed him what I had and he proceeded to go through it replacing whatever he thought necessary. Neat experience. Lee