Kirkham 427 on eBay addition/correction

[Bill Wells]

mssrs kirkhams :

with all due respect to a quality product, whats up with the barn sales on ebay ? seems to me you have relegated your cars to a wholesale kit car scenario now. one price on one adv, another price on another adv. pick the day, pick the week, one price one time and another price another time

if i was a kirkham customer of yore who paid full retail for any car resembling any of the recent ebay postings, and saw the same product i paid the big bucks for being sold at bargain basement pricing , i would be a po'd cowboy ! and if i was a prior buyer of a complete engineless roller i would say the same thing ! it seems to me your ebay venture is diluting the current value of your products as well as the value of the cars already sold,either roller or kit form and will have negative impact in the future

and of course the value of the finished product is diminished similarly...who built it ? what are the other components, ie, new or used...personally, i think this recent direction on your part will do you more harm in the long run than good. kinda like the FFR guys (hey, not flaming anyone here , but as an example)...a FFR turnkey by a private commercial builder using all NEW parts is a 40K car easy...a kit on the other hand by a backyard assembler using donor used parts is a 22-25k car. ok, dont hold me to the cross over those numbers, but the point is : the guy with the pro built 40k car can never recover his investment due to the many offerings for sale of the lower priced used part donor cars. hence the 22-25k car is a good value and limited loss in invesment as that price tends to set the water level for the others making the hgher valued cars harder to sell by comparison.

first questions asked is : who did it, what are the parts ( new/used etc), what is the aptitude/ability of the constructor etc. now try to sell a big buck pro built kirkham after the market gets glutted with lower priced cars by someone stealing an ebay kirkham kit and using lesser quality parts to finish the job ! like a 40k ffr vs a 25k ffr....are you really going to pay 80k for the kirkham when someone else can now do one for 50k ? dunno...but seems to me to be a big marketing boo boo. i have held kirkhams in high regard, but right now i don't know if i would have the interest in one. i will pay a competitive price but dont want to pay a premium when next week it might be 10k less...

just my $ .02 worth. i don't want to start a war here, but i spent 30 yrs in the automotive biz in marketing and sales and this path will lead you down the roto rooter path of digging yourself further and further away from a prior strong reputation for oustsanding products of high quality. your products will now become the victims of the folks who put them together, and those folks are not you !!!the dont have your higher quality levels in mind. sure some do, many may, but not all when the get the bargain of the week to start with .

lower quality as the end result will cost you in the long run reputation and value wise. again, not wanting to start a flame war here, anyone can read my prior posts and see that i usually (99%) of the time stay away from any bashing or controversy...but i just hate to see the current trend as it will not work in the long run and the short term damage will have long term negative impact. bill .