I am sure most everyone is aware of the problems with getting the lenses for our GT's.
Recently, I did a little research on what it would cost to tool up for making these and it is running from $30 to $40 thousand just for the tooling. I quoted 100 sets as a starting point. I know there have to be a lot of Fiero owners that would like to have the crappy lenses replaced on their cars. This would make each lens sell for $400 and that would not include materials, shipping and a fair profit. That just doesn't seem doable for many of us.
Does anyone have any ideas they could put forward on this issue?
Right now the only way a DIY person could produce the lenses or at least the covers without going broke would be with a crystal clear resin formula. You could make a silicone mold of the outside of the lens but for resin to be stable and resist cracking, it would have to be thick so you would have to create the inner mold smaller so the resin would have a thicker area to fill in. That would give you a 1/4" thick lens. However, this creates another issue as the inner colored lenses would not fit correctly so they would have to be trimmed down to fit in the factory housing as well as the thicker outer lens cover.
There is a vendor that has the tooling to make these. The Fiero GT tailight lens covers were made and sold on eBay and on this forum by someone in Washington state but I haven't seen them offered in a while. Do a search and you may be able to locate the source.
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I have contacted several plastics manufacturers and at this point have not been impressed with the number of responses. The most difficult question to answer is, "How many do you want?". I suspect the engineers are probably snickering at 100 sets. It would be interesting to try and get some idea of how many COULD be sold. I would think the few reputable vendors out there are, would be happy to buy some up at wholesale prices. I won't say the financing for the initial tooling is out of the question but I don't want to be stuck with $10000 worth of lenses and a die for 30 or 40 thousand collecting dust. I have GOT to at least get my costs back and make enough to offset the cost of pulling it out of an investment. I've got to wonder what I would pay. I noticed ebay has an OEM left lens new for close to $800! Would somebody really pay that for one lens?
I've looked at the fiberglass covers and i'm not really impressed with the look.
I've seen where these lenses can be cleaned but that doesn't eliminate the delaminating, the fracturing or the holes.
We need options or some innovative ideas to figure this out. Think about it ok!
I have contacted several plastics manufacturers and at this point have not been impressed with the number of responses. The most difficult question to answer is, "How many do you want?". I suspect the engineers are probably snickering at 100 sets. It would be interesting to try and get some idea of how many COULD be sold. I would think the few reputable vendors out there are, would be happy to buy some up at wholesale prices. I won't say the financing for the initial tooling is out of the question but I don't want to be stuck with $10000 worth of lenses and a die for 30 or 40 thousand collecting dust. I have GOT to at least get my costs back and make enough to offset the cost of pulling it out of an investment. I've got to wonder what I would pay. I noticed ebay has an OEM left lens new for close to $800! Would somebody really pay that for one lens?
I've looked at the fiberglass covers and i'm not really impressed with the look.
I've seen where these lenses can be cleaned but that doesn't eliminate the delaminating, the fracturing or the holes.
We need options or some innovative ideas to figure this out. Think about it ok!
Perhaps you should start with a search on PFF about GT tail lights. This has almost become a taboo topic. Even all the "experts" on tooling and part manufacturing run screaming when people with no experience start "thinking about it"... I don't want to say that you should steer clear of this, but you should take a loooong pause before continuing.
(...but good luck if you want to head down this rabbit hole....)
EDIT: ...would people pay $800 for a lens? I paid almost $1,000 per (used) tail light lens for my build. So there are silly people who are willing to pay high prices. Just depends on their motivation.
[This message has been edited by Neils88 (edited 05-16-2017).]
I love when this comes up because it always steers to the thousands of dollars that it would take to produce them. I find it hard to believe that simple plastic forming hasn`t moved ahead enough in 30 years to allow someone to make these lenses cheaper. Obviously, the covers that were made not long ago were pretty decent and strong with a reasonable amount of money to produce them but the shortcoming was the business side of it which took a dive.
I never said give up. I said you need to think long and hard about whether or not this is a realistic venture. Don't forget...it's not a single die, but multiple dies, for both the left and right sides. Plus materials, tools, labour. And most people won't pay a high price unless the product meets DOT specs/approval...so add this into the cost. There are a number of threads that have gone into the details.
Personally, I'd love someone to jump in and start manufacturing these again....but it just isn't likely to happen. I think you should go a different direction, like looking for ways to custom fit the tail lights from another car...one that is still readily available.
This madness (along with the quarter windows) is a large contributor to my choice of Fiero; a notchback.
Anyway, is Kickstarter some kind of magic bullet for this kind of thing which requires a good amount of capital before starting?
DOT is not an approval; anyone can assert their lights are DOT, provided that they have been tested and meet DOT requirements. This can be done on your own. Plus, I doubt most people care; any lenses (DOT or not) are better than cracked/delaminated ones.
[This message has been edited by pmbrunelle (edited 05-16-2017).]
With current manufacturing technology I don't think the math works. If the Fiero was a $80,000 collector car and there was strong market for lenses at $2000/set, sure. (don't scoff- a new repro 1969 Porsche 912 dash is $1200). But putting a $1000 set of lenses on a car that's worth $6000 and not likely to appreciate is something that isn't going to appeal to a lot of people.
While the average quality of Fiero now on the road has, IMO, gone up significantly in the last 5-10 years, the overall number has dropped significantly. I seem to recall that there were about 30,000 registered at last check, which was several years ago. 11% of all production was fastback GT, so a rough estimate would leave about 3000 registered today.
I think we'd need a manufacturing breakthrough, 3D printing or other, to bring the cost of production startup way down from the $50,000-$100,000 number I've seen tossed around for there to be a real solution.
What happened to the Fiero Store selling the GT lenses? Does anyone remember that? I bought 3 sets and they were perfect and exactly like the OEM. They even sold 'blems' that had tiny little flaws around the 'PONTIAC' script, I bought the blems and thought they were awesome. I still have 1 or 2 sets in my garage but I am keeping them as I have 86 GT that I know will need lenses some day.
What happened to the Fiero Store selling the GT lenses? Does anyone remember that? I bought 3 sets and they were perfect and exactly like the OEM. They even sold 'blems' that had tiny little flaws around the 'PONTIAC' script, I bought the blems and thought they were awesome. I still have 1 or 2 sets in my garage but I am keeping them as I have 86 GT that I know will need lenses some day.
Then you might be the best bet. If you could find a plastics shop that would take a set of your lenses and recreate them, that would be the best option I'd think. Not sure about the legal ramifications, but what if someone picked up where Slammed left off....?
Others would know more, but TFS didn't destroy the molds. The person entrusted with making them for TFS went through a lot of convolutions, and the molds were ”lost”. There whereabouts/status is unknown, but someone was recently trying to locate them. Efforts thus far have failed, AFAIK.
What is our biggest obstacle, anyway? A mold? The black portions being sonically welded? Look around at other cars with our style of tail lights. A good many Pontiac's had this style in the same era. Trans am (85-92 trans am, 91-92 GTA), Grand Prix, and I think the Sunbird? None of these cars have an aftermarket option. The firebird line is most likely to see a product before any of the others, yet nothing is available aside from used lenses that have been tinted to hide the delam. Hawks third gen parts is basically their equivalent of our fiero store. Perhaps us fiero owners should see if Hawks can help make a joint effort for our styles of taillights. Something to consider... The only other idea would be for a Chinese product. They sell enough knockoff tails for other cars...
I suspect a couple of the plastics companies I have dealt with have ties with China. The cost though seems to be the same across the board.
quote
Originally posted by viperine:
What is our biggest obstacle, anyway? A mold?
The biggest obstacle, as usual, is money. Will I be able to recover my expenses and turn something of a profit? (This is the rabbit hole!)
Financing may be available but I'll be pulling it from my portfolio and at some point, I have to turn some kind of profit on that.
Some places I have contacted will reverse engineer a file and build a new die.
I can think of a handful of vendors I think would be willing to distribute the lenses for a reasonable profit.
I would estimate an outlay of $50k for the first set. I have to get that back plus maybe 5%. I've heard from viewers who have paid over $800 for a single lens. At $800 each I could do that but come on, $800!!! Most of us fiero owners don't find that practical......yet. As mentioned above, the numbers are currently not there....yet.
[This message has been edited by kgoodyear (edited 05-17-2017).]
The irony here is I bought a fiero GT roller for $300 with the lenses an no wing sails. Of course they are aged but workable. It's crazy the lenses are worth more than the car!
17 years ago GM made a special run of lenses for The Fiero store and then destroyed the mold....Their stock has been gone for 10 years
Not quite. The story as I know it:
The Fiero Store (aka Leader Industries) bought the GM molds. They had a plastics company use them for one run of lenses. When that stock was depleted, they called to get more and the plastics company phone was disconnected. The company had gone out of business and the molds had been sold for scrap.
And so where we are: In need of $50 to $100K in tooling to sell a few hundred (at best) sets of lenses.
The irony here is I bought a fiero GT roller for $300 with the lenses an no wing sails. Of course they are aged but workable. It's crazy the lenses are worth more than the car!
It's like that with other things and drives people to destroy them by parting them out.
Would anyone pay $800/set for a new set? Yes. Would 100 people buy a set? Probably not at this time. Too bad, but Slammed seemed to have found a shortcut.
Would that $50,000 really result in any lenses? There have been many who tried, and spent fortunes on their efforts. Surely any attempts could pick up where those people left off.
The only way to do this would be to sell them to TFS or some such vendor. Would 100 sets eventually sell? Probably, but it isn't my money, so that's easy to say.
Right now, a used set can be had starting at $300, and repaired for another $300. So, $600 for a nice set.
Originally posted by tshark: Too bad, but Slammed seemed to have found a shortcut.
Several of them, including taking money and not sending a product, providing fake tracking numbers, making up fantastical stories about what was going on, etc., etc.
I would love to see this problem solved. It's dumb that I have a 9/10 set of lenses that I only put on the car for shows and a NIB Fiero Store repro set that I'm afraid to put on the car at all.
We all just need to agree that If any of us wins the lottery (mega millions, etc), we would use up to $100k to have GT tail light molds made. Also we will sell them at a fair price since this would not be a "for profit" venture!
The fact is, if anyone makes these properly for any price they will sit on the shelves for years and years and years. You have to be utterly committed to that fact in order to go any further. If you're not, stop now and forget about it. Even if you think you are, stop now and think about it again!
Originally posted by wgpierce: The fact is, if anyone makes these properly for any price they will sit on the shelves for years and years and years. You have to be utterly committed to that fact in order to go any further. If you're not, stop now and forget about it. Even if you think you are, stop now and think about it again!
I beg to differ. When TFS finally got some fuel sending units in stock for the first time after a long time, it was practically selling like hotcakes. When people have this fear that they might never see it available for sale again, they will stock up some in advance. I was told over 500 was sold and they had to order another batch shortly after that.
Also, I spoke to a guy who owns a Fiat X1/9 parts store, told me his experience of how he had a hard time finding a company who would produce some hard to find part for reasonable price. The best offer he could get was from an Italy company for $80K. I can't remember exactly what it was he was trying to reproduce, but anyhow he couldn't afford it. So, he was forced to do it in-house in order to save money & cut out all the middle costs. If I remember, it was $35K something & it paid off in the end.
What I can't understand is, according to public source, TFS was making over TWO million dollars in a year. That's more than enough to re-produce taillights even in-house & make a profit in the long run. So, what's the problem here?
What makes me mad is I hear often how people made millions of dollars all the time in the news and yet, in the back of my mind, how I wish it was that easy so I can produce those hard to find parts for the Fiero community. Then, I’d be the hero. Ha
Anyhow, please throw out any negative thoughts that it’s not possible or worth the trouble! If it wasn’t worth the trouble, we wouldn’t be here chatting about Fiero to begin with. We do have a CHANCE & HOPE of getting those taillights reproduced again and it will be worth the investment in the long run. We just need to put two cents together & figure out a way.
[This message has been edited by Fiero Vice (edited 05-19-2017).]
Ha! ..... the more polite answer would be.......YES, do a search for 'Slammed'
I spent most of my career working for auto parts vendors that build these kinds of parts. A tail light lens is an 'optical' part, meaning that the surface has to be perfect for the part to look good. Worse than that, the 'second surface', or the backside of the plastic has to be perfect.......or the part looks like junk and the buyer is unhappy. Although you can hand-finish the outside, you cannot polish the inside surface because of the corners and ribs, etc. The only way to get that shiny and uniform thickness on the whole part (so it does not look wavy) is with injection molding using polished steel tooling. Because these parts are large, the price goes up quick...so reports of tooling costing $100K to $200K do not surprise me at all. Vacuum forming is the process that entices people to try and duplicate the tail lights, but it will not produce 'optical' quality without additional hand labor that make the parts unreasonably expensive.
[This message has been edited by Gall757 (edited 05-19-2017).]
My, my the naysayers! I much prefer reading the supportive and curious responses!
This isn't the first, second, third or tenth iteration of this topic. We all want a solution. And many of us have seen multiple attempts fail over the years; the pessimism is a result of hopes dashed repeatedly.
Seriously, it kind of blows me away that a member of this forum who professes to be interested in the creation of GT tail light lenses appears to know nothing about the Slammed fiasco. I'm not saying any of this to be nasty, I just find it difficult to believe that anyone with even a passing interest in GT lenses could be that far out of the loop.
I beg to differ. When TFS finally got some fuel sending units in stock for the first time after a long time, it was practically selling like hotcakes. When people have this fear that they might never see it available for sale again, they will stock up some in advance. I was told over 500 was sold and they had to order another batch shortly after that.
Also, I spoke to a guy who owns a Fiat X1/9 parts store, told me his experience of how he had a hard time finding a company who would produce some hard to find part for reasonable price. The best offer he could get was from an Italy company for $80K. I can't remember exactly what it was he was trying to reproduce, but anyhow he couldn't afford it. So, he was forced to do it in-house in order to save money & cut out all the middle costs. If I remember, it was $35K something & it paid off in the end.
What I can't understand is, according to public source, TFS was making over TWO million dollars in a year. That's more than enough to re-produce taillights even in-house & make a profit in the long run. So, what's the problem here?
What makes me mad is I hear often how people made millions of dollars all the time in the news and yet, in the back of my mind, how I wish it was that easy so I can produce those hard to find parts for the Fiero community. Then, I’d be the hero. Ha
Anyhow, please throw out any negative thoughts that it’s not possible or worth the trouble! If it wasn’t worth the trouble, we wouldn’t be here chatting about Fiero to begin with. We do have a CHANCE & HOPE of getting those taillights reproduced again and it will be worth the investment in the long run. We just need to put two cents together & figure out a way.
Fuel sending units cost a LOT less to produce than GT tail lights, and the profit margin is probably much greater. There's also one thing, ALL Fieros would potentially need that part. Only Fastback GT's can use the GT tail lights, and only a fraction of those owners would even consider paying the cost for the new lenses at what I'm assuming would be AT LEAST $600 - $800. Most Fiero owners are "frugal" and would rather wait a year to pick up a decent enough set of used taillights rather than pop for new lenses. It's just not cost effective unless you're actually in the plastics profession (Slammed). Fiero Store exists by buying cheap and marking up prices. They don't put $100k out for R&D on their stuff with the hope that they'll recover the investment years later.
Originally posted by PARAD0X: Fuel sending units cost a LOT less to produce than GT tail lights, and the profit margin is probably much greater. There's also one thing, ALL Fieros would potentially need that part. Only Fastback GT's can use the GT tail lights, and only a fraction of those owners would even consider paying the cost for the new lenses at what I'm assuming would be AT LEAST $600 - $800. Most Fiero owners are "frugal" and would rather wait a year to pick up a decent enough set of used taillights rather than pop for new lenses. It's just not cost effective unless you're actually in the plastics profession (Slammed). Fiero Store exists by buying cheap and marking up prices. They don't put $100k out for R&D on their stuff with the hope that they'll recover the investment years later.
Regardless of what parts or how much it cost, my point is cuz of our passion for Fiero, we will make it happen !!! I, for one, would rather buy a new set than taking a chance with another used one that is 30 years old fragile set. Under new technology, a new one would have a much higher tolerance compared to an old set.
And speaking of fastback, over 40,389 fastbacks were produced for '86 thru '88. Let's say 50% of that figure survives today. That's still a very good reason to reproduce it and make some profit out of it. Even Fiat X1/9 produced much less cars than Fiero & their enthusiasts still find a way to reproduce some parts that was not available for a long time.
If anyone can make it happen for any other cars, then we can make it happen for Fiero. No excuses! No buts! We will find a way sooner or later.
Even Rodney mentioned he took a set to a tool & dies manufacturer & asked how much it would cost to reproduce it; they told him $50K to start with. But I'm sure if we do it in-house, we could probably cut that cost down further even if it means we have to hire a professional in the field of plastic as consultant.
Anything is possible if we put our minds into it along with our passion for Fiero.
I've decided to distance myself from the forum--too distracting. At least I am doing my part for the Fiero community by trying.
By "trying" what exactly?
We try to bring to your attention some of the trials and tribulations the Fiero community has faced in regards to replacement GT tail light lenses... and you decide to "distance" yourself from the forum?
[This message has been edited by Patrick (edited 05-19-2017).]
I'm not saying any of this to be nasty, I just find it difficult to believe that anyone with even a passing interest in GT lenses could be that far out of the loop.
