Avanti on TV

[Pat K]

Saw the ad last night. have no idea whether it will be good or bad, just some needed exposure of our brand.

FANTOMWORKS NIGHT
World Premieres Sunday, July 27 at 9 PM and 10 PM
Night Hosted by Dan Short of Velocity's FANTOMWORKS

Season two of the hit series FANTOMWORKS kicks off DREAM CAR WEEK on Sunday with all-new back-to-back episodes. Dan Short is an automotive force of nature - doing whatever it takes to restore cars to the highest possible standard. At 9 PM, hidden problems with a 1983 Avanti resto-mod pushes and a 1951 Chevy pieced together by a self-taught mechanics push Dan and his team to the brink.

[Billy Shears]

I have not seen the show, but I have seen some reviews of it, which are generally not complementary. Most of the other people in the business of fixing and restoring cars around here do not have many good things to say about Mr. Short either, including the mechanic I take my car to when I need anything done I can't do myself. I live in Norfolk where Dan Short has his shop. I am looking to paint my Avanti, and redo the interior, so I went to see him for an estimate just a couple of months ago. I was not favorably impressed.

Mr. Short, certainly appeared very knowledgeable, and the shop had worked on Avantis before – I had seen one parked out in front on Hampton Blvd. where they sometimes display some of the completed vehicles they work on, and Mr. Short told me of a customer’s 1983 Avanti II they had worked on. I had toured the shop previously, and it certainly is large and well equipped, and the cars inside looked good, that is to say, the quality of the work looked good.

However, within minutes of Mr. Short beginning to inspect my car, he began saying things which troubled me. The first occurred when I told him I was simply taking the Avanti around at this point to various shops, to get estimates, have a look at the shops and take a look at the quality of their work, and so forth. The money I have coming to complete the paint and interior work will not actually be available to me until October (it’s prize money from a Jeopardy appearance -- you may have caught me on June 11 & 12 if you watch thge show -- and that’s when they’re going to pay me). Mr. Short then told me he couldn’t give me an estimate that far out. He said “this business changes so much. It’s not what it was eight months ago, and anything I told you now I just couldn’t depend on in October.”

Horse crap.

Is the cost of paint going to double or triple between March and October? Are you going to double your employees’ hourly rates between now and then? What factors, precisely, are going to change so much as to render an estimate on labor and materials worthless in just a little over half a year? Even a very rough, ballpark figure was impossible he told me. As I said: horse crap. What it was is he just decided I’m not a serious customer, or something to that effect, and he didn’t want to be bothered putting the time in to complete a proper estimate. Some of what he said made sense: to get a really good estimate, we’d have to sit down and hash out how extensive the work was going to be; am I replating the bumpers and polishing the stainless steel window trim; what pieces am I going to replace and what am I going to refurbish, etc. I get all that. But – and this is especially true if he’s worked on Avanti’s before – he most certainly could figure out the man hours of labor needed to strip the old paint, prep the fiberglass, and paint it, plus the cost of materials. And I wouldn’t mind at all him saying “but remember, that’s just labor and materials on the paint job alone, and leaves out a lot of stuff.” It at least gives me an idea whether or not the amount charged is fair, given the quality of the work. Likewise, he could figure the cost of labor and materials for reupholstering the interior the same way. The fact that he wouldn’t answer a simple question bothered me. I could even understand if he said “look, no offense, but it takes hours to sit down with you, and go over everything I need to give you a proper estimate, and I really just would rather not until you’re ready to bring it in. I have a business to run and my time’s valuable.” That would have been the honest answer. Instead he blew smoke up my ass.

The second thing he said which really bothered me came after I spoke of some parts I had acquired for the restoration. He said “if you’re going to bring it here, the first thing we’d ask is that you stop buying your own parts. After all, you don’t go into a restaurant and bring your own steak and ask them to heat it up for you.” Well, your pardon Mr. Short, but you’re not running a restaurant; you’re running an auto restoration shop. You’re comparing cheese and chalk. There are very good and logical reasons for my coming up with some of my own parts. Take just two, for example.

First, one of the beauties of owning an Avanti, is that after Studebaker stopped making them, Avanti motors continued to do so for over twenty more years (before they changed to making re-bodied Chevy El Caminos that looked like Avantis). During all that time, Avanti Motors engineered in certain improvements in order to comply with increasingly stringent federal safety regulations, things like seats with headrests for whiplash protection, or like three point safety belts. These things were factory engineered to meet these regulations, and I want these improvements in my car for better safety, since I’m making it a driver, not show car (and the beauty of it is that these are completely reversible, so they don’t hurt the car’s value). By tracking them down myself, I was able to locate a set of Recaro seats from a parted out Avanti II, as well as new rear seat armrests, that Avanti motors recontoured to eliminate the rear seat ashtrays, and conceal the reel for the three point safety belts for the driver and front seat passenger. These are not parts one can just ring up a vendor and order. They appear sporadically, when someone parts out an Avanti II, and you have to get them when you can, which I did. So why should I not provide these parts, and leave, as my only alternative, having Fantom Works butcher my floors to fit an aftermarket seat that was never made to go in the car? Why would I ever want to do that when I can put a set of Recaros from and Avanti II in that will bolt right onto the existing seat tracks, and can be taken back out to have the originals put back in if I ever sell the car? Why should I pay Fantom Works for all the extra man hours that would be needed for them to custom fabricate a new pair of armrests to do the same job of concealing the seat belt reel that the Avanti II parts I paid forty bucks for are already made to do?

The second problem I have with this rule is similar (limited availability), but different in one crucial way. The seats with headrests and the three point seat belts I could live without if I had to. I could leave the original equipment in. But some items cannot be dispensed with, such as new rubber seals for the windows. My old ones are dried out and cracked, and no longer provide an effective weather seal. The rear quarter window seals are simply not available anymore. Since about 2012, when the most recent maker of reproduction seals decided to stop making them, no new supplier has yet emerged, and right now there is no one you can simply call up and order from who can provide these very necessary replacement pieces. When I realized how scarce these things were getting, I managed to find a guy who had a couple of pairs left, and bought one. Who knows if you could even find these things at all now? Even if Mr. Short could, it would require a lot of calling and emailing on his part to track them down – and this is time he would charge me for. Doesn’t it make a lot more sense to let me, the vehicle owner, member of both the Studebaker Driver’s Club, and the Avanti Owners’ Association, to contact the various suppliers with whom I have dealt for years, or network with other club members who might have what I need?

Apparently not for Mr. Short, who doesn’t want me to do this, and says he will charge me a ten percent surcharge on any parts I provide myself. I have paid top dollar for some of the rarer parts, and I’m damned if I can see any good reason why I should be charged for them again by someone who had bugger all to do with either making them or finding them.

Finally, when I told Mr. Short I was looking at various shops, in order to see which one looked like the best to me, he told me I basically didn’t know what I was doing, and that I was going about deciding which shop to use the worst way possible. People don’t care for being told they are stupid, and I don’t like it any more than anyone else does. I have owned Avantis for ten years now, and have done lots of my own work repairing and maintaining them. I can realign the doors, change out the instruments in the dash, replace the gas tank, etc. etc.. I stripped all the paint and primer off my 1975 Avanti myself with a razor blade and an orbital sander. I actually have a really good idea of what I am doing, and what the work should cost, and I’m not necessarily going to go with the lowest quote I get. And I’m not about to just turn my car over to Fantom Works or any other shop without looking at the place, seeing their work, and what they charge for it, and comparing them with other places, after seeing the quality of their work and what they charge for it. Apparently Mr. Short just wants me to take his word for it that he’s the best in the business around here, and that’s supposed to be good enough for me. It isn’t. And now that I’ve talked to him, I’m even less inclined to bring my car to him.

[Gunslinger]

It's sad that such things still happen. The way I look at it is there's always somebody hungry for business and my dollar and is willing to go the extra mile to keep me a customer. It's not like there's a shortage of auto body repair shops.

When I purchased my '70 and wanted it rebuilt, I went to the shop owned by a friend in my Corvette club. They specialize in Corvettes of all vintages and I reasoned if they can do a fiberglass Corvette they can do an Avanti. Their deal with me at the time was an flat hourly rate plus parts but I was free to provide parts if I wanted. Most extra parts I did supply since I was far more aware of vendors and other sources. It saved them time and me money. They supplied common automotive grade items like nuts and bolts. It worked well and they were sorry to see my car go once finished as they used it to show potential customers the quality of their work.

It's very unprofessional for Mr. Short to have such a condescending attitude towards potential customers. He may have to depend on being on television to stay in business as people who believe what they see on scripted shows may be his only future customers...and if ratings don't hold up that can go away very quickly. He'll find out how many friends he has should that happen.

[Billy Shears]

It's sad that such things still happen... It's very unprofessional for Mr. Short to have such a condescending attitude towards potential customers. He may have to depend on being on television to stay in business as people who believe what they see on scripted shows may be his only future customers...and if ratings don't hold up that can go away very quickly. He'll find out how many friends he has should that happen.

Mr. Short's biggest problem is a big head. Everything else flows from that arrogance. I take my car to Bruce Warren Auto Repair here in Norfolk. Mr. Warren (who is 75 -- God help me when he retires), works on a lot of old cars (and owns an old Chevy -- a '48 IIRC), which is why I started taking my Avanti to him. When I mentioned my visit to Fantom Auto Works, his sone and he told me about a visit to their shop that Dan Short had made when he first opened his previous shop. He swaggered into Warren Auto Repair, looked at some of the vintage autos in the place, and told Mr. Warren "I'm gonna put you outta business fixing old cars." Some months later, he called Mr. Warren to ask him for help on something he was having difficulty with, and Mr. Warren laughed and said "why would I want to help you? You're gonna put me out of business, remember." Needless to say, Mr. Short didn't get assistance from that quarter.

[warren55]

I do watch Jeopardy on a regular basis and wish I would have known you would be on it, since I have no idea what you look like and I assume Billy Shears isn't your real name. My hat is off to you for even qualifying to be on that show. I'm usually lucky to correctly answer more than a handful of questions on any given night, and I don't have the pressure of having a TV camera on me while I race to squeeze a buzzer!

[Billy Shears]

Hey Gunslinger! I think I just bought your armrest!

[Billy Shears]

Double post for some reason.

Edited July 25, 2014 by Billy Shears

[plwindish]

Dan Short's arrogance has shown through in the previous season shows. I do watch the show because they do come up with some neat looking cars. The removable 63 Vette split window top they made for the 63 roadster was really good looking. Having seen the 83 Avanti in Dover and looking at it closely, I do want to see the show about its build, which according to the owner was 15 months and over 6 figures in cost.

Its also interesting that last night I was at a cruise night where 3 50th Anniversary Corvettes were on display. The dark metallic red paint of the 50th Anniversary Vette was the color the 83 Avanti was painted by Short's crew. As I remember the paint job, they did "tweak" the color by putting more gold flake into it, giving a little more bronze tint to it. They also did a front and rear suspension change on the car, new motor, interior, wheels, shaved front and rear bumpers and a host of other small things most Avanti owners will notice. The shop does do what looks to me like nice work.

[GlennW]

I have not seen the show, but I have seen some reviews of it, which are generally not complementary. Most of the other people in the business of fixing and restoring cars around here do not have many good things to say about Mr. Short either, including the mechanic I take my car to when I need anything done I can't do myself. I live in Norfolk where Dan Short has his shop. I am looking to paint my Avanti, and redo the interior, so I went to see him for an estimate just a couple of months ago. I was not favorably impressed.

Mr. Short, certainly appeared very knowledgeable, and the shop had worked on Avantis before – I had seen one parked out in front on Hampton Blvd. where they sometimes display some of the completed vehicles they work on, and Mr. Short told me of a customer’s 1983 Avanti II they had worked on. I had toured the shop previously, and it certainly is large and well equipped, and the cars inside looked good, that is to say, the quality of the work looked good.

However, within minutes of Mr. Short beginning to inspect my car, he began saying things which troubled me. The first occurred when I told him I was simply taking the Avanti around at this point to various shops, to get estimates, have a look at the shops and take a look at the quality of their work, and so forth. The money I have coming to complete the paint and interior work will not actually be available to me until October (it’s prize money from a Jeopardy appearance -- you may have caught me on June 11 & 12 if you watch thge show -- and that’s when they’re going to pay me). Mr. Short then told me he couldn’t give me an estimate that far out. He said “this business changes so much. It’s not what it was eight months ago, and anything I told you now I just couldn’t depend on in October.”

Horse crap.

Is the cost of paint going to double or triple between March and October? Are you going to double your employees’ hourly rates between now and then? What factors, precisely, are going to change so much as to render an estimate on labor and materials worthless in just a little over half a year? Even a very rough, ballpark figure was impossible he told me. As I said: horse crap. What it was is he just decided I’m not a serious customer, or something to that effect, and he didn’t want to be bothered putting the time in to complete a proper estimate. Some of what he said made sense: to get a really good estimate, we’d have to sit down and hash out how extensive the work was going to be; am I replating the bumpers and polishing the stainless steel window trim; what pieces am I going to replace and what am I going to refurbish, etc. I get all that. But – and this is especially true if he’s worked on Avanti’s before – he most certainly could figure out the man hours of labor needed to strip the old paint, prep the fiberglass, and paint it, plus the cost of materials. And I wouldn’t mind at all him saying “but remember, that’s just labor and materials on the paint job alone, and leaves out a lot of stuff.” It at least gives me an idea whether or not the amount charged is fair, given the quality of the work. Likewise, he could figure the cost of labor and materials for reupholstering the interior the same way. The fact that he wouldn’t answer a simple question bothered me. I could even understand if he said “look, no offense, but it takes hours to sit down with you, and go over everything I need to give you a proper estimate, and I really just would rather not until you’re ready to bring it in. I have a business to run and my time’s valuable.” That would have been the honest answer. Instead he blew smoke up my ass.

The second thing he said which really bothered me came after I spoke of some parts I had acquired for the restoration. He said “if you’re going to bring it here, the first thing we’d ask is that you stop buying your own parts. After all, you don’t go into a restaurant and bring your own steak and ask them to heat it up for you.” Well, your pardon Mr. Short, but you’re not running a restaurant; you’re running an auto restoration shop. You’re comparing cheese and chalk. There are very good and logical reasons for my coming up with some of my own parts. Take just two, for example.

First, one of the beauties of owning an Avanti, is that after Studebaker stopped making them, Avanti motors continued to do so for over twenty more years (before they changed to making re-bodied Chevy El Caminos that looked like Avantis). During all that time, Avanti Motors engineered in certain improvements in order to comply with increasingly stringent federal safety regulations, things like seats with headrests for whiplash protection, or like three point safety belts. These things were factory engineered to meet these regulations, and I want these improvements in my car for better safety, since I’m making it a driver, not show car (and the beauty of it is that these are completely reversible, so they don’t hurt the car’s value). By tracking them down myself, I was able to locate a set of Recaro seats from a parted out Avanti II, as well as new rear seat armrests, that Avanti motors recontoured to eliminate the rear seat ashtrays, and conceal the reel for the three point safety belts for the driver and front seat passenger. These are not parts one can just ring up a vendor and order. They appear sporadically, when someone parts out an Avanti II, and you have to get them when you can, which I did. So why should I not provide these parts, and leave, as my only alternative, having Fantom Works butcher my floors to fit an aftermarket seat that was never made to go in the car? Why would I ever want to do that when I can put a set of Recaros from and Avanti II in that will bolt right onto the existing seat tracks, and can be taken back out to have the originals put back in if I ever sell the car? Why should I pay Fantom Works for all the extra man hours that would be needed for them to custom fabricate a new pair of armrests to do the same job of concealing the seat belt reel that the Avanti II parts I paid forty bucks for are already made to do?

The second problem I have with this rule is similar (limited availability), but different in one crucial way. The seats with headrests and the three point seat belts I could live without if I had to. I could leave the original equipment in. But some items cannot be dispensed with, such as new rubber seals for the windows. My old ones are dried out and cracked, and no longer provide an effective weather seal. The rear quarter window seals are simply not available anymore. Since about 2012, when the most recent maker of reproduction seals decided to stop making them, no new supplier has yet emerged, and right now there is no one you can simply call up and order from who can provide these very necessary replacement pieces. When I realized how scarce these things were getting, I managed to find a guy who had a couple of pairs left, and bought one. Who knows if you could even find these things at all now? Even if Mr. Short could, it would require a lot of calling and emailing on his part to track them down – and this is time he would charge me for. Doesn’t it make a lot more sense to let me, the vehicle owner, member of both the Studebaker Driver’s Club, and the Avanti Owners’ Association, to contact the various suppliers with whom I have dealt for years, or network with other club members who might have what I need?

Apparently not for Mr. Short, who doesn’t want me to do this, and says he will charge me a ten percent surcharge on any parts I provide myself. I have paid top dollar for some of the rarer parts, and I’m damned if I can see any good reason why I should be charged for them again by someone who had bugger all to do with either making them or finding them.

Finally, when I told Mr. Short I was looking at various shops, in order to see which one looked like the best to me, he told me I basically didn’t know what I was doing, and that I was going about deciding which shop to use the worst way possible. People don’t care for being told they are stupid, and I don’t like it any more than anyone else does. I have owned Avantis for ten years now, and have done lots of my own work repairing and maintaining them. I can realign the doors, change out the instruments in the dash, replace the gas tank, etc. etc.. I stripped all the paint and primer off my 1975 Avanti myself with a razor blade and an orbital sander. I actually have a really good idea of what I am doing, and what the work should cost, and I’m not necessarily going to go with the lowest quote I get. And I’m not about to just turn my car over to Fantom Works or any other shop without looking at the place, seeing their work, and what they charge for it, and comparing them with other places, after seeing the quality of their work and what they charge for it. Apparently Mr. Short just wants me to take his word for it that he’s the best in the business around here, and that’s supposed to be good enough for me. It isn’t. And now that I’ve talked to him, I’m even less inclined to bring my car to him.

Very well stated. Might be fun to print it out and send it to him (perhaps after you have somebody else do the work) so he can digest it when there's nobody around to strut in front of. Your points on parts are very well taken, it's not like you were insisting on dropping off your own tires, oil & filters for a one year old car for routine service..

[GlennW]

I hadn't seen the show on it's regularly Sunday airing but stumbled across the episode last night. Car looked nice but I saw a lot of what Billy Shears pointed out. I couldn't work with someone like Dan Short either, there's just an attitude about him that reminds life's too short for attitudes. Seems to be an underlying attidute that the customer is a nuisance bearing money. At the beginging of the show there's a droning diatribe about, "It's all about the car" and if forced to "choose the car or the owner" he'd do right by the car. Then in the following episode, they turned a Cobra replica into a clown car. Oh well, was nice to see a restored Avan-tay roll off all shiny

Edited August 6, 2014 by GlennW

[ken1007]

I tend to watch this type show but filter out the scripted drama like i do for the endless, often insulting, ads. Recent Fantom shows point out:

1. The danger of DIY restoration. (no surprise)

2. There are those more interested in what they want than what they pay for it. (no surprise)

3. I's good that the Avanti owner closed his "shop". (no surprise)

4. Power steering choice (electric) is something to remember.

5. Corvette rust can be worse than Avanti issue with hog troughs.

6 Gun mounts on a cobra is questionable, in my view, but refer back to #2 above (no surprise)

So learning two things in two hours may make it worth while. Ken, Deltaville Va

Edited August 7, 2014 by ken1007