From the Fall 2018 Summit tool catalogue, pg 14. Click on the pic to rotate it.

Click to view attachment

It's always good marketing.....to know your market.

Definitely good to know your market but I’d say they missed the mark. If you’re capable of doing body work on a car (and on a 914 we KNOW that involves welding) then why on earth would someone buy this for $1500? The parts/material would probably set you back $300. Time probably 5-6 hours?

You're right, but I would say at least half of the sales for these kinds of things are for the dreamers. I've gone to look at sooooo many cars where the guy bought every piece of new metal for the car, bought one of these store bought rottiserries, even bought a welder, maybe even an English Wheel, but never actually used any of them.

At the shop, we buy a lot of this stuff. carts, rotisseries, benches, ext. If our metal guy is building stuff, he's not working on cars. It actually takes a fair amount of time to order, cut, weld, assemble, paint. For many home hobby guys, money is a consideration but in retail, time is money.

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At the shop, we buy a lot of this stuff. carts, rotisseries, benches, ext. If our metal guy is building stuff, he's not working on cars. It actually takes a fair amount of time to order, cut, weld, assemble, paint. For many home hobby guys, money is a consideration but in retail, time is money.
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Do you ever have slack time? Or does someone get sent home then?

Oh, I get it. But money is money, too. I own my own business and it ultimately comes down to which route is cheaper.

[quote name='worn' date='Sep 3 2018, 10:15 AM' post='2645094']
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At the shop, we buy a lot of this stuff. carts, rotisseries, benches, ext. If our metal guy is building stuff, he's not working on cars. It actually takes a fair amount of time to order, cut, weld, assemble, paint. For many home hobby guys, money is a consideration but in retail, time is money.
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Do you ever have slack time? Or does someone get sent home then?
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Every normal Porsche shop I know has no slack time. My mechanic told me for regular stuff he is 6-8 weeks out and for long term stuff like restoration work he is 2 years out. So yes, time is money. Which is also why I farm all of our mechanical out to his shop, we could muddle through the work probably, but it would take us 2-3 times as long, so we stick to what we do best, pumping out cars.

That picture has been running in the summit catalog for years. In fact i think it was even posted here before.

[quote name='worn' date='Sep 3 2018, 02:15 PM' post='2645094']
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At the shop, we buy a lot of this stuff. carts, rotisseries, benches, ext. If our metal guy is building stuff, he's not working on cars. It actually takes a fair amount of time to order, cut, weld, assemble, paint. For many home hobby guys, money is a consideration but in retail, time is money.
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Do you ever have slack time? Or does someone get sent home then?
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There is never any down time. The biggest problem is finding capable employees. There’s enough non stop work for the next four years. A lot of work gets turned away or goes elsewhere because there’s not enough manpower to get it done.

The owner has promised to finish up my car that I pulled from VA but I have no idea when it will get done. I need to learn how to weld so I can move along my other cars. I have a tentative plan to set up a plastic garage at my house and hire out/in the bodywork. There is a large Hispanic population near us (Kenneth Square - mushroom capital of the world) and some of the guys are very skilled. Keeping it at my house means I can keep an eye on things. I want it separate from my garage or workshop. The dust is overwealming. The shop now has a top of the line paint booth and glasurit mixing station and the painter is the one I originally found to paint my motorcycles. Very good and I like him. At least that’s the plan for now.

Everything is always more work than you would expect. It’s intimidating. Cutting up a car takes a lot of work. X 100 to weld it back together.

Those are the guys who get really angry when I either decline to buy their car or offer them way less than they are asking. These guys will take a running and driving car, put it on a rotisserrie, cut it to ribbons, spend thousands on new metal, take their engine down to the last nut and then throw in the towel. The problem is they took a car that was worth about $25,000 and have reduced it down to about $5000. Any monkey can take a car apart, putting it back together takes patience, some skill, and hours upon hours of slow work. I tell everyone, pick one corner of your car, fix it, and move to the next part, don't take on the whole car, by the time you get back to one part you won't even remember how it went together.
This was a good example this was a running and driving, shiny paint car, and this is what he wanted to sell me.

Nailed it

Same ad from when I ordered for my project. its a nice rotis, The price has gone up a bit since then of course

I was planning to build a rotisserie, but found a good used one on CL for about $900 in great shape. I could have built one for about half that, but it would not have had the built-in jacks and the screw to adjust for the center of gravity. To add those things I would have been around $650 or so worth of parts and steel. It also would have been significant amount of time to make. I figure I can sell this commercially made one for $800–$900 when I am done with it and break almost even. Trying to sell a home made one would be more difficult.

-Andrew

Good point.