Watch out for Nick Acton!!

[ScratchBuilder]

All,

Please keep in mind the scale here. There's about $20-25K of labor and chassis involved and another $25K of parts
that Nick didn't manufacture that he resold to me. That are of no use without a frame and control arms. Nick's ally parts cut out on his plasmacam
like the dash panel and firewall look good. However the chassis and control arms are sub-standard in weld quality and bent,
bushings seized on control arms, etc.
At my expense I 'm having the front upper and lower control arms replaced with another vendor for around $2K
and they don't have issues, ie there not bent and weld quality is good, they measure to print, and the ends are in line.

After closer inspection of the Acton frame the welds you can see are ground smooth with a
thick coat of paint and the ones you can't are poor quality. . .

Still waiting on Nick to make this right and could've done so over the years, instead of covering up his mistakes:
1. adding spacers to the dash stand offs to hide the fact the body is in the wrong spot by 1.5"
2. building wide custom control arms due to shock towers being too wide
3. extra long intermediate steering shaft due to body being in wrong position
4. Control arms and mounting points bent to fit
5. Bronze bushed control arms bushings seized or over reamed and appear to be hammered on
6. Rocker panel arm bent backwards to mask body in wrong spot

Nick committed to building a frame as good as Kirkham and didn't come close, for the amount of $$ involved I would've
been better off buying a kirkham roller, but I thought Acton was a quality shop. . ..

And from talking to other ppl Nick owes at least three people some money.











So where's the stand up, make it right, and fast shipping Nick Acton?

SB

[NewYorkGuy]

good read.

the lesson here, especially when big $$ is exchanged, is "find someone close to you."

Face to face meetings, not emails or phone calls.

So many bad experiences about customers dealing with vendors from another state or country.

[1985 CCX]

Well since we are all sharing..........

My experience with Nick and his company has been nothing short of perfect. I have had a Contemporary and now a scratch built 289 car. I have purchased multiple parts both custom and some that I engineered to fit on my previous car and Nick fabricated. I do admit that I am an easy customer as when given a task or a part I understand that these are hand built cars and some massaging my be necessary. On that note he has always been fare with the return of materials that didn't work for me as I made modifications that deviated from stock.

If I had a custom part made after my engineering he has always been attentive to making sure fitment worked. Even going as far as asking the installation process so he can pass along to other customers. This helps the cause...

I understand that some of his customers that he has dealt with wanted their ordered fulfilled ASAP and actually requested discounts as they would rectify the things that did not fall into Acton Custom standards in the first place rather than wait for things to be corrected prior to shipment. This was to his downfall as it came back to bite.

There are always two sides to the story and Nick always answers my calls, emails and or smoke signals.
As a matter of fact I am going to do some more work with Acton Custom in the coming weeks. Without reluctance or worry that things will not work because I know they will.

Would I purchase a chassis from Acton, absolutely
Would I have Acton make me a car, yes
Would I have Acton supply custom parts, of course and I plan too

[ScratchBuilder]

"I understand that some of his customers that he has dealt with wanted their ordered fulfilled ASAP and actually requested discounts as they would rectify the things that did not fall into Acton Custom standards in the first place rather than wait for things to be corrected prior to shipment. This was to his downfall as it came back to bite."

Jeff, if thats what Nick told you, you were lied to as well. Nick informed me prior to shipment the body did not fit and it was due to the cobra restorers prints being wrong. He offered to fix it or give me the discount of 1500. I said fix it and I asked when he could do so and he refused to commit to a date because he was busy with CSX3035. I told him if he couldn't fix it in the next 5 weeks that I would take the discount and get my car. Since he would not commit to that, I accepted the discount based on him telling me the issue was with the prints. Turns out the issue with the body not fitting along with all the other issues with the frame were due to the blueprints not being followed and workmanship. . . . And when I say fix, I mean the body alignment only, he assured me multiple times everything else was right on the car including the suspension and the same as the other Cobras in his shop. . . All the cover up mods shown in the previous pics were done more than a year ago so there was no ASAP deadline.
And how does that explain the bent and bowed control arms, twisted shock tower, etc?

The reason I went with Nick is from his reputation on THIS forum and looking for the kind of experience described by other forum members, instead I got junk and I'm trying to salvage what I can. From my perspective, the replacement ladder frame would be at my door by now or if he really wanted to step up the salvaged CSX4772.

SB