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Re: plastic seat rails, the business side


Strange, my '72 still has the stock seat rails, all of 'em whole.  Guess 
I'm luckier than I thought.  As for the pricing of plastic parts...

Since Jonce is already in the process of making the hinge covers I'm sure he 
knows about this process (I'd like to hear comments on how it's going) so this 
is primarily for those not familiar with making stuff.

I only have a minor in Business Administration, but there are some things I 
know about mass production and it's call 'economies of scale'.  Though this 
model works with many forms of products and it *basically* means this:  The 
more you purchase of one item the less the cost to you will be per item.  
Ever notice how some things will have several prices, depending upon the 
quantity you buy?  The more you buy, the less each item costs.  This is how 
mass production works that allows the consumer to but a car.  If you were 
to purchase each car part individually and build the car yourself (to keep 
labor costs out of the equation ;) the total cost of the car would be well 
over five times the manufacturers suggested price (a friend and I computed 
this out on a Ninja 200 motorcycle that he totaled back in '89).  You will 
notice that this concept is (finally) being used in the house building 
market in the form of manufactured homes.  Exactly how economies of scale works 
is beyond the scope of this forum and I will spare ya'll the gory details.

Whew!  So, what does this mean to you and the plastic parts?  You will need 
to contact the plastic people and an engineer (they probably have one 
working for them) to figure out how the item will be formed, what type of 
plastic to use, and other engineer-type questions.  Then the mold, casting, 
what-have-you must be designed, will two be needed?, one for the left rail and 
one for the right?  Then purchasing the plastic and performing the actual 
creation takes place.  All said and done a single seat rail could  cost you a 
couple hundred dollars (this is being conservative).  But if it is successful, 
you can have a lot produced, say 50 to 100, and it would cost you less per rail 
made.  Either way, you then have to determine how much each rail will cost 
(money to recoup from investigation and cost to produce), add any profit you 
think you deserve, then try to sell to the public.  Since T3 aren't as common as
Bugs you won't be selling many, thus the retail price will be high.  Now you 
kind of understand why the door and trunk seals are so spendy for the T3!

Luckily, if the business is good and customer-orientated, you should be able to 
get estimates of all this and determine if the venture is worth-while or maybe 
solicit investors to help defray the costs (but share the profits...).

So Jonce, I hope it's affordable and the best o' luck to ya.  We need more 
entrepreneurs in the T3 world.
     Toby Erkson
     air_cooled_nut@pobox.com
     modified '72 VW Squareback 2.0L
     stock '75 Porsche 914 1.8L

______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: plastic seat rails
Author:  type-3-errors@umich.edu at SMTPGATE
Date:    12/8/96 3:25 AM


hi all
jonce from street bugs just to let you know ive got a set of these in N.O.S.
form and it took a mere 5 years to locate. and sorry there not for sale. but
i have found a few poeple in the detroit area that deal with plastic molds
and such and im in works on the pop out hinge covers for type 1 in ivory. so
i guess i should see about repro those seat rails too. eh? how is the market
do you think they could sell and how much is a fair price?? this all must be
check out to see if worth while. thats the biggest problem with t-3 parts
not enough in the world to make repos affordable. any input?  by the way i
...


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