Confidence Beginning to Waiver on Type-65 Build Order

[edwardb]

I understand very well your concern about dropping a large chunk of cash. You need to have complete confidence in the company you're dealing with. I've talked pretty extensively to all the different folks that answer the phone at Factory Five and met many of them in person during two factory visits, and I've never had the negative feelings you describe from anyone. It's one of the most entrepreneurial and customer focused companies I've ever dealt with, and every single person has always been very interested in helping me. I may not always like what they tell me (like the delivery date for xxx) or sometimes they may just not know. But "waxing poetic..." or "more interested in hearing himself speak..." No, don't get that at all. Two sides to every conversation I guess.

To your specific questions: (1) When you actually place your order, they will check the production schedule for whatever you're ordering and give you a fixed build and delivery availability date. They can give you the soonest available, if that's what you want, or can typically accommodate if you want a certain future date or time frame. Typically it's maybe one to several months, but there is no fixed lead time. Depends on what you're ordering and available production capacity, and I suspect is constantly changing based on order backlog. But once a date is fixed, they will tell you they hit it 99% + of the time. For my last order (Roadster #8674) I ordered in June. The next available date was early August. They hit the date exactly. (2) The promised delivery date, as described, is based on their internal production schedule for the chassis. They will pull all the parts for your order and prepare it for shipment on or before the promised date. Whatever parts aren't available at that time will go on your backorder list (or POL - Parts Order List as they all it) and be delivered to you as available. The number of parts and the time required varies a lot. It can take several weeks or even a few months to get every last part. Many parts are produced internally. But many parts are from suppliers. There are literally thousands of parts involved. They may be able to tell you in advance if there are particular problem items, but typically they can't tell you in advance what parts will be backordered.

They have delivered over 13,000 kits based on a speech Dave Smith gave at the London Show a couple months ago. So this is something they've done a lot. Perfect? No. But pretty impressive.