If a small family owned niche business closing its doors because of this surprises you wait til you try to go out for dinner after this passes.
Because Hoffman companies will sell you something that cost them .50 cents to make....your price? $50. They sell garbage. Offenhauser sells quality products to a really small market.
Isn’t Penske known for taking over a company and liquidating the assets and making the company disappear? Or maybe I’m thinking of someone else.
My dream fantasy is to put a Offy flathead racing engine into a 1927 Ford Tall-T and run amok on the streets.
I've been an Offenhauser dealer for 25 years and have been thru the highs and lows of supply. The way it has worked recently is your place an order and they give an estimated time of delivery and I ad on 2-3 months. Their product is still good but their manufacturing methods are old school and take some time to accomplish.
If their turn around on orders is more than 3 months and 2-3 weeks of a slow down has brought them to their knees they shouldn't be in business in the first palce.
Where these guys are located they are under a gov't mandated closure, if they are not an "essential" business, and I doubt they are, then they can't be open and working, they can't be producing product or shipping orders. They're dead in the water until the gov't eases up and allows them to open back up. Meanwhile, bills continue to come in. I suspect that is the reason for their troubles, not necessarily a lack of sales.
I don't need any parts right now, at least nothing they make but I did just order a couple of t shirts. I'm no hero, just doing my part.
There are major aerospace companies who employ hundreds of office personnel and they are all working from home now.
All they have to do is play by the rules and they will be eligible for an SBA loan to keep things going. They will fare better than most other folks. Someone mentioned the fact that they do not sell to the public, only through distributors. I think that hurt their operation a lot. Selling their name and brand to Speedway Motors had to be a mistake. Those guys are sharks.
I hope they and others in this business get through this. My brother and I dropped in during their open house during the GNRS this year - a really cool shop making really cool things. I appreciated their open house and was glad I happened to be in town to see it.
Family run small manufacture business are unaffected by mandatory closer if not dealing in direct customer retail
Sad to hear that they are struggling. It is truly a niche market for these type of parts. I have to respect how they are doing their manufacturing, but as other post mentioned, it can't really cut it in this modern day of instant gratification. Humans are growing more and more impatient for ordered and shipped products as other industries have grown incredibly efficient. Imagine the potential there with the brand name history and recognition. Toss in a 3D scanner for precision modeling of already proven parts. Build a database of every item with that. Bring things into the modern world for data storage and retrieval. Update the catalog/web page. Develop a clear plan for future expansion. All tough tasks for a small business like this, but you have to modernize to survive. Unfortunately for these old antique engines there is limited room for modernizing parts without getting outside the traditional look. But then again Offenhouser makes/made stuff for so many other engine families too. I had a 4bbl intake from them on an old Land Cruiser, so... Just thinking out loud i guess on possibilities. None of which are cheap.
Hey that’s it! The guys at Offy can just take home a bunch of molten aluminum and a mill and work from home. That will help them get through this. Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
I completely agree. When I saw that Accuair went under, I have to call BS on the Coronavirus being the impetus for closing. I run a business as well, and if you're so tight that you can't survive 3 weeks without revenue, your company had one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel before the mandated shut down. Furlough your workers. Between unemployment benefits and the federal aid being offered to supplement it, your laid off workers likely won't see much decrease in income, if any at all. You mean to tell me they couldn't carry a mortgage or rent payment plus utilities for a month? That's all the quarantine has been so far, even though it feels longer. I'm sorry to hear Offy is having trouble, but I highly doubt their trouble is related to the Coronavirus.
My view from strictly the outside is that Offy seems to think that they can survive long term on old designs long paid for. But that will not work. You grow or everyone outgrows around you. If they R&D'd a LS intake or two and some stuff for 302/351W Fords and Coyote's they could pay the bills and keep the vintage stuff in production.
Not working do to the small company (20 employees) being declared non essential. My concerns are not about the future of Offy.
Stagnant designs in a dying hobby. Not even trying to stay current- not a recipe for success. Just ask all the stage coach builders from 120 years ago...
This is second hand info from a Flathead Social-media group founder. anybody contact OFFY to see if this is true before you start nailing the coffin shut??
when I was there, they were working on designs to fit SBC valve covers on LS engines hiding the coils, also re-working BBC valve covers to fit stud girdles. Things take time and money to produce along with current product
Hop Up posted similar sentiments on their intagram feed and Offy replied to the post and did nothing to dispel the information.
Well you may be right, but that is counter to what I've heard. I've heard that ALL non-essential business must shut down and employees must stay at home unless going out for essential needs (like food). I've heard the LA Co sheriff's have been contacting business that have remained open and told them to shut it down. Those who refuse are liable for fines, even arrest. But you can't believe everything you hear, maybe you're right.
A friends restoration shop in the San Diego area has been shut do till further notice. They are working with the state and county to reopen. They only have 6-8 employee's.
The good thing is that they don't undersell their dealers like Krylon32. I've always had a lot of respect for any company that sends you to their dealer for the order rather than undercutting them. The bad part is that they probably loose a lot of potential sales buy individuals who just won't take the time to hunt down a dealer including calling them and just flat asking if they have a dealer in your area that you can buy from. The other thing is that all of those cool old machines that they use are as old as me or older and don't work much faster than I do. Plus you can't stick a piece in them and punch a button and walk off and let it work nd then go swap pieces and hit the buttons again as shops with more modern equipment can. As much as we as Hambers appreciate the fact that the parts we just bought new were cast using the same molds and machined using the same exact machines that were used on the dinged up and over priced ones we saw at the swapmeet last year the process is time consuming. I follow them on FB and they have posting and some of the posts in the last few days indicate that things are indeed tight for them but that at least one dealer is having a sale on their products. I haven't bought a new T shirt in a couple of months so I am due. If you were going to order a part but waiting until you were a but further in the build now might be the time to order.
I have come to greatly prefer ordering parts directly from the manufacturer. With any problems, it's easier to deal directly with the source than with a sack full of middlemen.