Constant,
Glad to.
In 1983 I met Brian Angliss, owner of Autokraft in Detroit at the SAAC convention. I was a long time Cobra fan, never an owner, who also had a family Ford dealership. A conversation with Brian turned into a long meeting, a breakfast meeting and became our becoming the first Autokraft AC MK IV dealer. I was involved in helping convince Ford to back the program and met many Ford people who were real enthusiasts and wanted Ford back into the performance market. We got it to work, I started advertising the cars and writing orders......now Brian only had to get certification for the US for the cars. Ford, to their credit, gave all the help promised and while I was on my first trip to Weybridge (and first time in the UK) the EPA certification paperwork came over the fax. Much celebration ensued.
For about three years I sold and imported the MK IVs and helped set up other Ford dealers as well as running the dealer association led by Paul Thomas of Pawnee Ford in Oklahoma. I had a customer supply a car to MOTOR TREND for a road test, I worked with Goodyear to get a "non-existant" tire a replacement for a ROAD & TRACK story (a whole 'nother tale I will relate)...all wnet well for three years or so. Brian became increasingly difficult to work with, many Ford dealers dropped out of the program as the cars were no longer selling themselves. Brian started to take orders from dealers with out a minimum order quantity and dealers who had cars in stock for a long time started to disscount them. This, for a specialty car is the kiss of death and we dropped the car.
Part 2- AC version 2.0 1999 and up...to be continued.
Rick