mmm where do i start?. as most of you all know i have been a member on this forum for quite a while and was one of the earlier members to join. when i first started coming on here and bought my first ever commer van there wasnt that many members in the club and parts were very few and far between to come by,everone else in the club was also struggling to obtain any panel work for their vans and also mechanicle parts. i got fed up with trying to look for stuff on ebay back then as it was hopeless to be fair, as there just wasnt much about at all.thats when i decided that enough was enough and decided to go into trying to recreate as many of the panels needed to try and restore my own van. after making the first few panels the phone started ringing, with calls from fellow members asking if it would be possible to make some panels for thier vans also,hey hey i thought there might just be a market here for re producing stuff on a bigger scale, and so i went about setting up coventry commer panels, the place where people could come and get the bits that they needed. the first couple of years were great with steady little orders coming in on fairly regular bases,and things looked quite promising, i had to invest quite alot of time and money into having jigs and castings made up to try and improve on the panels as much as i possibly could, so that there would be very little complaint with the goods etc, this drained me really of quite a bit of money, as every thime i wanted to get something re produced i had to fork out for the first few items to be made myself, and had to have many panels knocked up in batches of ten etc,which can be quite costly seeing as there are many panels to try and re produce.anyway after the first year or so of selling panels i then got asked to not only supply the panels to someone but to also have a go at restoring the van or them at the same time, that was when basses van was born, the first out of my work shop, which i also had to build up at great expence at the same time in order to undertake the work. two years have passed me by now and it all seems like a big blur really as i have work on around fifteen vans in total, many of which have been brought back to their former glory by having full on restorations undertaken on them, i wont list the vans as most of you have seen them on here anyway, as i have posted up many pictures of them as we went along the way. i have had a great time in trying to restore the vans for people and hope that the good points in my work far out weigh the bad times and comments that have been mentioned on here over a couple of topics of just recent times.im not going to lie about it to people,and would rather come out with it and try to explain myself to clean the air a bit amongst us, sometimes i have been a bit of a fool to myself by dragging jobs on for a bit to long,some times this was purely my fault with bad decisions made along the way , and other times it was because of the situation that we are all in now, with this awful recession, and the constant struggle we are all facing with things like cash flow etc. during this last year i also have had a few horrible things done to me with regards deals that have been made with fellow members , which have left me with a dent in my own pocket and scares after they had done the dirty on me, but im not going to go into all of that now as its water under the bridge as far as im concerned. anyway back to what i was trying to say, i have enjoyed the last couple of years doing all this stuff and hope that everyone else has enjoyed the results that i have achived,and feel like they have had value for money, but due to a lack of orders for parts recently, now that the supply chain has grown, and the recent drop in offers of work on peoples vans, which i think has come from a combination of all the things mentioned above, i have decided to call it a day for a while,as its just to much hassle and a struggle all the time trying to keep every thing and everyone happy. and so i have decided that from this day forwards im going to finish off the last couple of vans in my workshop over the next few months or so,and try to turn out a cracking last couple of vans before i sign off and take a big back seat for a while,and let others take over where i have left off. i will still keep my workshop open as i would be a fool to close it all up completely, as i have invested alot of money into it, and i will still be working on the odd commer van here and there,along with a few other projects that i have up my sleve, but unfortunatly they will no longer be on other peoples vans,and will be my own, as i intend to restore a few vans for myself to try and sell on once they have been completed, as this way i cant upset anyone with restoration completion times etc. hopefully things will turn out ok for me and feel that this is the path way that i want to try and go down for a while, nothing ventured nothing gained as they say!. and so the end has arrived, i would like to say one or two more things before i sign off, and thats a big thank you to everyone who has used my panel services and restoration services over the last three years, i really valued your custom, and i hope you all valued mine, i would like to thank admin john for helping out with the web site etc, and also to my old mate panky for posting up pictures for me on a regular bases. and to anyone else who has been a good friend or fan. i would also like to wish martin maltas all the best over the next few years with his business and web site, and his efforts at sorting parts out for everyone else, to help keep their pride and joys on the roads. i hope to see you all soon and will try and organise one last big meet at my place later this year some time, and i will always still be around on the forum as a fellow member, enjoying all the gossip as usual. so many thanks once again ,lol from the woolfman.[:X]
Big Bad Woolf
Big Bad Woolf
