Just An Observation About the SOC

One of the things that really enraged me when I was first getting into this hobby and all of the communications was through email message boards, was that people would be warning each other about shady builders or parts providers back then via email lists, and then you would see glowing articles and advertisements about those very same companies in the magazines of the time.  Kit Car Builder by Curt Scott finally stopped taking their ads and reported the truth about some of them (like CMC and a couple of guys on the West Coast) and got crucified in court.  He persisted in getting the word out as long as he could in the face of multiple court cases and then just sort-of disappeared.  But CMC was still screwing people for a few years until that fell apart, too.

Then I learned in that lengthy saga of CMC and George Levin that Greg posted that other magazine editors/publishers knew of the shady characters, too, but kept up the glowing articles and ads because it meant more magazine revenue!  (Wait, WHAT???)

And THAT is why I haven't paid any attention at all to whatever Kit Car magazines are left out there, because they have the same old editors/publishers as before.  

So where can you go for the truth?  Well, the Hot Rod folks started with an email list, too, which morphed into the "Hokey-Assed Message Board" or HAMB.  Over here, we have the SOC trying to do much the same thing as the Hot Rod guys (and pretty successfully, I might add) but for us to guide people in their choices, they have to find us, first and THAT is the hard part.  I really don't have an answer to show us how to spread the word farther, so here we are.  If they find us, we can help, but once the cash is transferred to the shisters it gets a LOT harder to recover, if at all.

Before we go too far down memory lane, it's only fair to remember that SAS Autosports advertised on this site for many years after his business practices became common knowledge.  As a matter of fact, I found out about Steve Lawing and SAS on this site.  It was only after a ground swell of complaints convinced the site owner to cancel Lawing's ads, but it took years for that to happen.

Interesting observations, guys.  When I decided I wanted a hobby car and wanted to avoid rust, that naturally pushed me toward kit cars and replicas.  I went to just about every site out there and lurked for a long time.  Most turned me off rather quickly, but I stuck it out at Cobra sites.  I didn't spend much time on Speedster sites because <please don't be mad> I had never really cared for Speedsters.  Then I saw an article about a very outlaw Thunder Ranch that intrigued me.  The more I researched, the more I began to come around to the Speedster's looks.  I was becoming discouraged with the macho posing I saw on the Cobra sites and I had also realized that the price of entry for a car I would be happy with was just too high.  I had started lurking on the SOC in 2004 and saw the pictures of the first Carlisle gathering.  I also saw how congenial the forum was compared to most of the others.  When Bruce Stumpp started planning for Carlisle 2005 I reached out to him and said I was researching the cars and asked if I would be welcomed.  Of course he said yes and I joined the madness (by proxy since I didn't yet have a car) in May of 2005.  The rest of my history is pretty well known here, but suffice to say that it was the people on this forum that drew me to the cars, not the other way around.

@Jim Kelly posted:

Before we go too far down memory lane, it's only fair to remember that SAS Autosports advertised on this site for many years after his business practices became common knowledge.  As a matter of fact, I found out about Steve Lawing and SAS on this site.  It was only after a ground swell of complaints convinced the site owner to cancel Lawing's ads, but it took years for that to happen.

10 years before that, the membership of this site rated JPS "ALL 10s!!!!"

So what happens to these replica companies?  CMC was selling millions of $ worth of cars.  Sales tactics were a little questionable but then you could always hang up.  I loved traveling and seeing them in airports nationwide.  Do they grow extra greedy or think they are somehow above the law and standard business norms?  I too remember Thunder Ranch and Ryan Motors (1993ish?)

I always admired Bud Goodwin's FiberFab creations.  A huge number of cars and platforms supported.  He seemed to be a real car guy - more interested in creating interesting cars versus collecting profits.  Even his life was tainted though.  One of his cars was called the Jamaican - named after his 2nd and 28-year-old wife.  It was a beautiful swoopy car -- apparently, she was too.  In apparently what was a discovered affair, he shot her and in 1967 was convicted of involuntary manslaughter. He was thrown in jail for 12 months but died of a heart attack on 26 December 1968 while still serving his jail term.

Seems the old saying "Absolute power corrupts absolutely!" has truth.

@Jim Kelly posted:

Before we go too far down memory lane, it's only fair to remember that SAS Autosports advertised on this site for many years after his business practices became common knowledge.  As a matter of fact, I found out about Steve Lawing and SAS on this site.  It was only after a ground swell of complaints convinced the site owner to cancel Lawing's ads, but it took years for that to happen.

I'll agree with you Jim.  But lets be 100% honest, you make it sound as if SAS/SAW were paying for endorsements, that's not true.  Right next to the advertisements for SAS you could read the disgruntled customer feelings about Steve's business.  There were never articles skewing the truth or endorsing him and those very advertisements did more to bring people to the threads of bad experiences than anything else.

Steve paid to advertise the experiences of his unhappy customers.
That makes me very happy.

-=theron

@Stan Galat posted:

10 years before that, the membership of this site rated JPS "ALL 10s!!!!"

Yep, I pulled the old ratings system because it was too easy to skew.  I think reading actual owners experiences is more informative.
-=theron

Google Speedster replicas and you can't even find the SOC on the first page. I did it because I wondered how people are still duped into handing over money to Lawing without finding this site

Hi Theron,

Thanks for your interesting response above.  I don't know how I could state my case any clearer: SOC accepted advertising from Steve Lawing dba Specialty Autosports long after many users of this site complained about his unethical and illegal business practices.

I neither mentioned nor inferred that SOC endorsed SAS, merely that they accepted advertising from his company.

Insofar as your suggestion that such advertising actually exposed the SAS business model of taking customers' funds without delivering any product, I suggest a run for political office may be in your future. 

"Google Juice" is a whole other subject.

I have a catch phrase, which has not caught on: "Platform Is King."

—By which I mean that the social media website one reads or publishes to or sells one's stuff on controls everything about what you see and who you reach there. Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Amazon, etc. all create an invisible bubble around your content, which they mine for data and money, and deploy as they see fit. The price you pay for using their service is becoming their pawn, and probably not knowing the rules or even what the game is, because they change it at whim.

My favorite thing about this site is that, like The HAMB, it's an old school stand-alone web site, not a page in some other guy's checkbook. BUT...that means search engines are how newbies find it, and these days that means Google is the gatekeeper. And Google is effectively the internet's largest platform now.

So then who is the Keymaster?

There is a whole field of internet-based employment called Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which I'm sure Theron knows very well. In general, it pits you, the website host/owner, or their consultant, against the mass of Google engineers—who offer a helpful (if over-simplified) Newbie Guide. (Go ahead, click on it. it's as easy as assembling an Ikea couch or a CMC Speedster kit).

All of which to say: thanks, Theron. I can only imagine the dragons you must slay in order to keep this thing looking and working the way it does. And I forgive you for not doing everything you can to get it on the first page of the Google search.

I switched to MS Bing search engine a couple of years ago.  I enter a search for a VW part with CIP in search - I get no hits on first couple of pages.  Same with TASCA a Miata parts source.  Guess they aren't kicking back enough to MS to make their search listing.   We all think the internet is free but big companies are reeling in micro-cents which add us to $!

@Jim Kelly posted:

Hi Theron,

Thanks for your interesting response above.  I don't know how I could state my case any clearer: SOC accepted advertising from Steve Lawing dba Specialty Autosports long after many users of this site complained about his unethical and illegal business practices.

I neither mentioned nor inferred that SOC endorsed SAS, merely that they accepted advertising from his company.

Insofar as your suggestion that such advertising actually exposed the SAS business model of taking customers' funds without delivering any product, I suggest a run for political office may be in your future.

What I always thought was comical was that SAS was advertising on this platform and his money was going to support the very page which was exposing his deceitful and fraudulent business practices to the greater community.  You can't beat that...

Thanks @edsnova SOC isn't the top hit for "speedster replica"  I gave up on that simply because we aren't selling speedsters, so it's a nightmare to get to the top without faking "for sale" listings.

However, we are usually first for
"speedster replica problems"
"speedster replica forum"
"speedster replica issues"

and in the top 5 for
"speedster replica makers"
"speedster replica manufacturers"

and @Jim Kelly (at the risk of my political career) we are also in the top 5 for all the dirt on "specialty auto speedsters".  According google AdSense dashboard, the threads which used to run SAS advertisements, brought users to the pages when they searched "specialty auto speedsters".  Google is secretive about the algorithms, but each of the threads I posted permanent Ads on, received far more traffic for their keywords.  That's an absolute fact.

-=theron

I can understand a lot of this. Being an instant gratification type, I guess I always put the cart before the horse. I always joined forums after my purchases. My first was The Chain Gang, after I’d bought my BMW F650* (BMW’s first chain-driven MC) In fact, my user name is based on that. I was the 476th person to register there. Subsequently my user name on every other forum I’ve joined has been dlearl476.

Same with my Triumph Sprint (it was a newsletter back then!) Alfa Sprint, and Porsche 968. I think I may have visited Larry’s Spider forum before I bought, but I don’t think I registered. In fact, I think my first post was announcing I bought #201 in the register thread.

I guess after 25 years, I’ve finally wised up. I spent a lot of time on Boxster forums before I settled on which one I wanted to concentrate on.

FWIW, I’m sure it’s my search history but all I have to do is type “S” in the search bar and SOC auto fills  but whatever we could do to increase the visibility to “researchers” would be great IMO.

* In my defense, I did a lot of research before I bought either bike, but mostly on MC magazines and Manufacturer websites.

@ALB posted:

What I always thought was comical was that SAS was advertising on this platform and his money was going to support the very page which was exposing his deceitful and fraudulent business practices to the greater community.  You can't beat that...

Which reminds me: I’ve been meaning to ask about SoCal Speedsters. They advertise here and have a very professional website and some awfully pretty cars on it, but I’ve never heard boo about them. Anyone have any first hand experience?

(I ask, not to trash them, but in hopes there’s another decent reseller out there. We’re down one. Which only puts more pressure on Carey and Greg)

@Theron posted:

Yep, I pulled the old ratings system because it was too easy to skew.  I think reading actual owners experiences is more informative.
-=theron

Me too.

It took a bit to get over the sting of trusting the wrong people, but it wasn't you or the site that was the problem. It was owners of JPS cars trying to protect their investment, and the bandwagoning that is my chief complaint with all special interest sites (not just this one) that skewed the ratings system.

@dlearl476 posted:

Which reminds me: I’ve been meaning to ask about SoCal Speedsters. They advertise here and have a very professional website and some awfully pretty cars on it, but I’ve never heard boo about them. Anyone have any first hand experience?

(I ask, not to trash them, but in hopes there’s another decent reseller out there. We’re down one. Which only puts more pressure on Carey and Greg)

SoCal Speedsters purchased all of the assets of Beverly Hills Motorcars and changed the name to SoCal Speedsters.

https://www.speedsterowners.co...pic/socal-speedsters

I believe his name is Doug Hocking and he posted several comments in the thread link that Robert posted above, but nothing since that time.

@Theron Normally, when you click on someone else's profile you can select "posts" and see all their posts.  When I do that on his profile it doesn't show any posts at all even though there are several.  What's up with that?

@Troy Sloan you’re right.  I just clicked my own post link and it’s not showing any of my replies.  I’ll submit it as a bug report.

-=theron

SoCal Speedsters.  I wish we could get an accurate read on what goes on down there.  All I see here are questions about what the heck they actually do.  And the first pictures and cover prose from the company that came and went really fast.  I was in CA months ago and was going to at least drive by.  But I ran out of time and it was not very close to where I was.  Has anyone in earshot here actually visited their place of business and gotten a reliable assessment?

What is their address and who do I ask for ?  I'm always out and about. My zip code is 91007.................bruce

https://www.socalspeedsters.com/contact

Thanks.....next trip to San Diego I'll go take a look.  That will be in Sept...........bruce