Vintage Speed is sold by Ron Lummus

Very cool stuff

@IaM-Ray  Cool stuff. Thnx for sharing that  link, Ray! 

I know some people were ordering from a far, but I know others know Ron Lummus and have dealt with him so I figured now that he is a vendor it might be worth buying from him it seems a lot of people want their stuff on the list. 

Oh, full disclosure, he send me 10% of whatever the list buys ... not !

I met Ron Lummus at one of the local VW Treffen events in SoCal. I stopped at his booth and had a nice long talk with him as well as seeing his product line he had on display. Very knowledgeable person and very personable. He also stands behind his products.

At last year's West Coast Cruise, a fellow SOCer (Brian 'Longella') donated a Vintage Speed muffler for our dinner raffle. Another SOCer (Cory McCloskey) scored on that prize!

Brian 'Longella' had replaced it with a custom exhaust from Greg @ Vintage Motorcars. 

Ron Lummus racing is a class act, like Berg Enterprises, Jack Sachette(JayCee, just sold to EMPI) and Mike at Autocraft in Mass. And don't forget CB and aircooled.net. These vendors, along with the usual(good) Speedster and Spyder manufacturers, make this hobby worth it. I'm sure I missed a few, but you guys know what I mean.

So, the topic of vendors comes up from time to time. I divide them into two groups-- those who make parts, and those who sell parts other people make.

Almost all vendors will sell some parts made by other people, to round out the product line. But the people who make parts are getting fewer and farther between. Danny listed a lot of them, but there are others-- Avery's Aircooled makes a super-cool, high dollar TF-1 case. JPM in Sweden makes all kinds of ridiculously cool and expensive parts. Pauter in California makes a lot of super high-end dragster parts. Tiger at A1 makes some really special exhausts.

RLR makes some great parts (multi-disc clutch packs, full cages, etc.), and as Ray mentioned, recently entered into a relationship with Ming at Vintage Speed to distribute his parts as well. You can't build a whole car, or even a whole engine with parts exclusively from RLR, but what you do buy will be good stuff--- and that's what he's about.

CB does this on a bigger scale. They make a lot of their own stuff, and sell other people's when they need to round out the product line. They are an unbelievable asset to the hobby.

The guys who sell other people's parts shouldn't be dismissed. I personally really like buying from aircooled.net. John Connolly is a knowledgeable asset to the hobby, and will sell almost any part from anywhere if it's good. He'll sell crankshafts from China, but they'll be good ones. He's a full-line parts store, and has a ton of stuff all in one place. Pricing is good-- onesy-twosy parts will be cheaper somewhere else, but not a lot, and John always gets and ships stuff in a timely manner (which is something not as common as you might think).

If I can buy it from CB, I generally do. But if I'm buying something generic CB doesn't have, or I'm trying to restock parts that I use a lot of-- aircooled.net is the place for me.

Your mileage may vary.

Well, that pretty much sums it up.

I've gotta get over to check out Autocraft and meet Mike (after all this Creepin' Crud is passed).  They're only a 20 minute ride from here.  

I think he picked up a couple of really good guys that used to work at a motorcycle machine shop nearby that closed because the owner was sucking the profits up his nose.

Just itchin' for a road trip, even a short one!

Mike is really personable on the phone. The quality of their dry sump pump is VERY apparent. Usable art, just like JayCee and Lummus stuff. Tell him I said hi, Gordon. And also that my dry sump system works a treat!

I just remembered, Mario Velotta at thedubshop.com is a great asset to our industry.

He sells all sorts of stuff related to EFI on aircooled cars. Quality parts and great service.

Stan, TF-1 case is made by Todd Francis. I think his company is Precision Alloy.  I think it is sort of a side gig for him.  They are beautiful pieces of engineering!

LI-Rick posted:

Stan, TF-1 case is made by Todd Francis. I think his company is Precision Alloy.  I think it is sort of a side gig for him.  They are beautiful pieces of engineering!

Todd Francis used to own Avery's, and developed the case about 10 years ago (2011, if memory serves) when he did.

The last time I contacted Todd was in 2012 or so, but a quick cruise around the internet tells me that Avery's has been sold to a guy named Jason Deleon. That's the thing about this hobby-- you snooze, you lose.

Stuff changes every day. I didn't know Darren Gurrola had sold to EMPI and moved on to other things until earlier this year.

Jack Sachette sold to EMPI too.

So how do you reach Vintage Speed? I just tried to send them an email and it came back with an auto-reply about being closed for the Chinese new year (in January!).  

@wombat posted:

So how do you reach Vintage Speed? I just tried to send them an email and it came back with an auto-reply about being closed for the Chinese new year (in January!).  

I would call aircooled.net; they're a Vintage Speed dealer, are a class act and get you great prices; some time ago they had a great offer where if you liked their page on Facebook you got 15% off on your order. Not sure if it's still on but I got my Vintage Speed exhaust through them. Got it quick and a 15% discount on top of that. Great deal.