History Liquidation of crane cams, inc. .. :-(

I heard that Harvey Crane was pushed out of the business he started and developed 10 or 20 years ago. It seems that when a company is run by pencil pushers and not by people with a passion for the product, survival of the business is not the top priority.
I think (as stated above) Mr.Crane is alive, doing well, and still involved in the camshaft business.
I hope Crane Cams is restructuring and not folding up, it'd be a shame to see another icon of the industry disappear. It would also be a shame to see them move "offshore". They would lose my business for sure.
Larry T

 

Well, the vast majority of people in America look at everything as a throwaway. They buy cheap tools at Harbor Freight, buy their kids' clothes at Wal-Mart, finance a new car every 5 years, and buy a shitty-built McMansion in a krappy pre-fab development. No pride is taken on buying quality stuff that will last for decades, keeping it for generations, tinkering with things to keep 'em going, and being happy with that. My folks are the same way, I'm currently helping them shop for a new (used) car, and when I suggest something I KNOW will last them a long time, my mom pipes in and says, "That's too old!" She'd rather go finance a new Kia, just because it's shiny and new and it MUST be better, right? Bullshit.

 

More on this today as reported by Rachael Granby on Seeking Alpha.com 10 minutes ago.

This will be part of the reason Cranes liquidators will be considering moves to keep the business open. There are afterall some big time customers looking to buy hundreds of thousands of items in each order and even the chinese can't cope with demand like that yet...
Further to my post here yesterday. Don't forget there is bunch of greedy folks with their grubby little mits on your dollars watching the US very closely.

 

'at HAMBCAMS we're really eccentric!' that's another classic! Nice!

here's a quote from that article:

"Nearly 100 workers showed up at the Crane parking lot Monday after e-mails and Internet chat-room messages carried word of a deal and a job fair. Despite a note on the door that read, "Job Fair," Scorpion executives said they did not call for that meeting"

If they've advertised an auction, it sure sounds like they're serious about liquidating.

Ol' 'Joe the Plumber' also talked big about owning a business he had no means to purchase.

The name and rights will get sold, but re-open the business as/where it was? I'll believe it when I see it.

It sounds like the new-ish owners of Crane took the money and didn't re-invest it in automation.

There's tons of these companies that are 'old school' but really just dormant, selling product but not actively doing R&D or introducing new products. Maybe thats' part of the difference between bean counters owning a company and someone with passion for the product?

 

Like many other Big 3 suppliers, they got caught in a cash flow crunch. If they were not very profitable before, this did them in. I worked for Magna Int'l. for a few years. They sequeezed their suppliers cause they were inefficient themselves. It was not uncommon to be paid 120-180 days on invoices and contracts called for year over year reductions based on realizing efficiencies on your production process. It's hard to make money when you are financing GM, Fords inventory for 180 days and then they can't pay you.

Also, as much as you guys bitch about buying N.American, we will NEVER return as an industrial power house because what people really want is American quality at Chinese prices. It won't happen because:

a - even if people wanted to buy better quality goods made locally, they can't afford it. (declining middle class incomes, no pensions, higher taxes and health care costs.).

b - every one is looking for the killer deal. Quality is irrelevant to most people, especially if it's buried in an engine. As your neighbor driving his PT cruiser what kind of cam it's got.

 

http://scorpionperformance.com/newsite1/scorpion.php?category_id=98

 

Interesting story in the NYT business section on the lack of value of some companies so that Chapter 7 is the bankruptcy of choice over Chapters 11 or 13. Harvey's name pops up from time to time in Secrets of Speed or F.A.S.T. with info on cams for T, A and B engines. Met him several times at SEMA shows and he's a real gentleman and was a tough competitor in the cam business.

 

Their offer was way to low to make the buy they had the "job fair "before they even knew if they owned the company.

 

GM still pays ON TIME. It is just that they keep beating us down for pennies or they threaten to take the business to China/India/Timbuktu

GM terms are usually MNS2 which is 2nd Day, 2nd Month. An average of about 47 days. Not 180, not 90, not 30. Now this isn't TOO bad unless you are shipping from overseas and they want you to have 4 weeks of safety stock (47+28) plus the time on the water (47+28+30) plus you want 2 weeks safety in your oversea facility (47+28+30+14), then you are talking about 4 or 5 months of financing and that gets hard!

Chrysler, well, they don't have any reserves to pay no time because Daimler stripped those off!

I doubt Crane Cams were doing a ton of OEM jobs. They were mostly an aftermarket company. Too many chances for competition to set up a machine to make 1 million sets of 1 cam anywhere in the world to keep them in OEM.

 

http://harveycrane.com/

A good read. I doubt he cares too much, they did him in.

 

Back when I heard of Crane Cams being bought for their surface finishing technology, I thought Crane might be used as a "write off" and closed. Pencil pusher stuff. That purchasing company wasn't remotely interested in aftermarked automotive products nor the jobs of the Crane employees. I'm glad to hear the news about Scorpion, and hope it's true. I've bought Scorpion products and the quality was excellent. Seems they want to produce stuff for us gear heards. I bought roller rockers for a 348 chevy at a reasonable price. I only hope Scorpion keeps the Crane name for the camshafts...

 

I posted this to a thread a long time back but until we stop the "Not in my back yard"Mentality we will never stop buying from foreign countries.Back when I made my origional post a US steel refiner wanted to build a new facility in the US after trying for 2 years to find a receptive area in the US for their new refinery they gave up and built it in South America!I don't have access to this article any more it was in one of the many magazines sent to companies involved in the manufacturing field.The trickle down hit my job 3 weeks ago I was employed as a Weldor/Fabricator for a shop supplying machine parts to the parent company that manufactures grinding machinery most of which was going to automotive manufacturers.
Not all corporations WANT to go overseas but until we wake up and give them places willing to have their plants and jobs they don't have much choice.One of those trade magazines also ran a 4 page article about how companies are moving manufacturing BACK to the US because they are finding it MORE cost affective!Catipillar is one of those companies they were having mobile generators built I believe in Spain but have since brought production back here.I have first hand expierience with their problems with foreign manufactured units having to repair or rebuild 3 dozen units that had gross defects in welding/fab work.If you don't already start reading those industry mags that usually just end up in the lobby for visitors there are a lot of eye opening info in those things.

 

I thought Crane Cams and Ford were pretty tight working with each other with the SVT program. It was my understanding that they supplied the cams for Motorsports but I could be wrong.........

I know the push rod cobras had the Crane roller rockers on them.

 

From harveycrane.com

IT'S TRUE!

On February 25 of 2009 the local news paper in Daytona Beach, Florida published a story about the closing of the 56 year old auto parts manufacturer Crane Cams. The newspaper blamed it on the economic conditions.

The TRUTH is the Wachovia Bank forced the closing because of the Crane employee payroll bank account was no longer being funded.

Here are OTHER TRUE FACTS!

This firm was founded on January 1, 1953 by Harvey J. Crane, Jr. as Crane Engineering Company. In 1963 the firm was Incorporated as Crane Engineering, Incorporated. A new employee was sold 20 percent of this new corporation.

Later in anticipation of going public the name was changed to Crane Cams, Incorporated.

In 1986 the firm along with 55 friends and employees were moved to Daytona Beach, Florida and Harvey J. Crane, Jr. announced to the all the employees that he was taking his first real vacation and left for Alaska with his wife Maxine in their 37 foot Beaver motor home and was gone for three months. Harvey returned to work and for 40 hours a week continued to provide the technological leadership to this firm with over 300 employees.

On January 24 of 1989 the executive group voted to FIRE Harvey. At that time Harvey owned only 17 percent of the firm. The Employee Stock Ownership Trust (ESOT) had been buying Harvey's stock and GIVING THIS STOCK TO THE EMPLOYEES AS AN ANNUAL BONUS & PROFIT SHARING !

17 years later the "ESOT" sold the firm to Mikronite Technologies.

2 1/2 years later Mikronite management laid off most of the employees.

The front doors are now locked with less than an average of 5 cars in the front parking area.

 

This will be interesting: COMP bought a lot of their cam blanks from Crane. There is going to be a big ripple effect from this. Everyone will adapt and overcome, but it's going to take a while.
The whole thing seems to parallel what happened to Chrysler: A big company somehow got leveraged by a smaller company, then several years later, the smaller company ditches the bigger company after plundering them. Diamler was much smaller than Chrysler, and after learning their technology and wiping out their cash reserves, they dumped Chrysler back on the market--they basically gutted it.
Looks to me like Mikronite Technologies did exactly the same thing.

This is what happens when companies lose focus of their core business--Like they say here in the South: You dance with who brung ya.

-Brad

 

Seems kinda ironic that the Employee Stock Ownership Trust is responsible for the employees becoming unemployed.

 

Uhh, Harvey is very much still alive!

 

Ahhh, just another "we did it to ouselves" story. Few of us buy "American" anymore and even fewer (Unions) give a rats ass. We want the mostest, the cheapest, the best and the easiest at all times. So, buy Japananese and enjoy. Who knows, if were lucky..........they will treat us ok.

 

I've been preaching the enevitibility of this for the last few years and it's been falling on dead ears. The only differece from what I've been saying is that the timetable has been moved up DRASTICLY. When you want to be paid more for doing less, when you unwilling to pay for quality, and you watch your country go in the toilet and do nothing (fail to elect officials who REALLY care and have a workable plan) then it's "you get what you ask for". Our forfathers would be proud

Frank

 

This is an interesting read. Unfortunately, this is another case of corporate piracy. They purchase a company for their equipment, technology, customer base and whatever else they can sell off. In these cases, the parts are worth more than the whole. It is a sad commentary on corporate America.

 

I like this idea

 

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At one time crane cams where located in Miami or Hollywood florida I remember as a kid you could see the plant from HWY I95 it was about the only hot rod history south Florida had

 

www.harveycrane.com

(hallandale fl. originally)

 

yes: in the middle of hollywood and miami to all you so cal boys we had crane !!
so what you guys had everything else

 

Why not give Ryan the $50?

Better served.

 

As much as I hate more new laws, there should have been better regulation to prevent this kind of plundering from going on. Who do you even blame? The greedy bastards who did it, the politicians who stood back and let it happen, the unions who didn't care as long as they got paid... ? We have a similar situation going on here with New Process Gear owned by Magna International - employees have voted down two new contracts in a row because they figure Magna is going to close the plant anyways and if they agree to lower pay, their unemployment and other benefits will be lower. Magna doesn't modernize the plant and has the same parts and pieces made overseas instead. Can't blame them too much.

 

dude that sucks....................

where in the hell am i going to get my valve train from now, i dont trust any others but them, they have had all my special orders for several years

 

Bull shit!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wake up people!!!!!!!!BUY AMERICAN!!!!!!!!!

 

#### -- It doesn't suprise me in the least bit as employees rarely make good management material >>>>.