Bill,
I was done dealing with independent assemblers after dealing with BSC. What I found is this: there isn't a great deal of mark-up in our cars, so the guys who woulkd buy kits and assemble them on thier own would try to cut corners to make an extra buck. I found, too many times, a cheaper engine or cheaper gearbox to make a few bucks. Very short sighted. Couple that with shop turn-over, lack of customer service, lack of knowledge, and lack of quality control, and you have a recipe for disaster. You wouldn't believe some of the things I saw done to cars. Quite frankly, I got tired of following behind some of these guys and cleaning up their messes, even after I was done with them. I just couldn't let the customer sit with no resolve.
I cut my ties with BSC over 18 months ago. I don't think they could possibly still have any kits in stock, but who knows... They had conrtracted us to make new Lister tooling for them (well before all the "mess"), and I understand they are trying to make this car currently.
When AL contacted us, it was clear that they didn't want to make "Beck" cars. They wanted to build the Automotive Legends brand. So I sold them a starting point for their own product. I even flew out to their Camirillo facility and helped them sort through a few snags in the process. The work was nice and they had Russ from Fibersteel doing a bunch of custom work on their cars too. Once again, turnover in the shop, etc... and someone new is building the cars. I cannot say anything about their current quality, as I just don't know. The quality that I saw first hand was very nice, and the "extras" that were done by Russ were top notch.
That being said, there are plenty of shops that would do a bang up job. We have sold kits to Chris Radbill, Bill Metcalf, and a few others that do this sort of thing on the side. Independent shops that buy a handful of my kits (and others) at a slight discount to fill some down time, and have fun. These guys can still buy my stuff, because they KNOW what they are doing, they have good (or at least descent) customer follow up, and they create their own relationship with the customer.
Regardless, no more "dealers" with the ability to build a "kit". Most they can do is complete from a roller (i.e. add engine) and maybe a few options, but they also MUST be clear that they are an independent shop performing this work and these things are not "factory" completed.
As for price: it just depended on the area, time of year, shop, etc... Most of the ones I saw were in line with my MSRP pricing. BUT, I would see a shop with several kits in stock, that needed to turn that back into working capital, and would cut prices to do so. On the other hand, some of the shops would have a considerable mark-up, over my MSRP. I guess you can't really call it mark-up, since they set their own labor rates, added their own accessories, etc... but it was higher priced than coming to me, nonetheless.
Honestly, what ever works... no skin off my teeth. My price is my price... bottomline. We are running at full capacity (125-150 cars per year) and we are sold out every year.
