Long Island Corvette Closed

[Vinnie P.]

Re: Long Island Corvette Closed

Michael, When was Paragon sold and to who?

Bob...I believe Coker Tire is involved now, but I could be wrong, was from a conversation I had with my Paragon contact for Driveline advertising...
Vinnie

[Bob W.]

Re: Long Island Corvette Closed

Vinnie, Thanks for your reply. So in the last few years Corvette America, Dewitts , Paragon, and now Long Island is added to the list as sold.

[Robert W.]

Re: Long Island Corvette Closed

I honestly never got a poor part from LIC, I'll miss them. Also, I usually received the parts the next day too!

[Dennis C.]

Re: Long Island Corvette Closed

Michael, When was Paragon sold and to who?

Legendary Companies, which includes Coker Tires plus.

https://www.aftermarketnews.com/para...ary-companies/

https://www.legendarycompanies.com/

[Ed S.]

Re: Long Island Corvette Closed

I am confident new ZIP will be a great partner / vendor in the hobby - it is a "people" oriented business - that always leads to success.

[Mark D.]

Re: Long Island Corvette Closed

I think we’re watching the inevitable result of the generations that collected and restored the Corvette of their youth gradually becoming extinct...You very rarely see a C1 on the road and C2s aren’t far behind.

Maybe the 1990-1995 ZR1s are coming to the front. An option that doubled the price of the car is pretty cool, especially on a car that could achieve blistering speeds.

[Thomas N.]

Re: Long Island Corvette Closed

Also,"In February 2021, Zip broke ground on a new building for the Mechanicsville campus. This new space triples Zip's capacity for mechanical work and provides additional on-site storage space so Zip can stock larger quantities of quality Corvette parts. The new building also provides room for Zip to expand its manufacturing capabilities, growing the list of Corvette Parts reproduced in-house." (from their website).

So buying the assets of LICS makes sense to help fill the new space and add to their growing list of parts reproduced in house. With Zip's involvement of all years of Corvettes, they probably are the best to keep the torch going. People have been restoring C2's for 40+ years now, so once you take into account all that have been restored, and many cars being resto-modded instead of restored, the demand for parts is probably going down. With Zip's involvement of all years, they can probably absorb the smaller volumes of parts. Like LICS, Zip is a family run business for a couple of generations. I'm going to miss LICS, but think Zip is the best fit for the continuation. I've bought parts from Zip for many years for my cars, and most recently bought a lower front air dam for my 96 Corvette. And out of the three I bought, the one they supplied is the one that fit properly (radius of curvature of the end pieces and such). I'm glad to see the tooling and drawings are not going to be lost forever and tossed in the scrap heap, like the fate of much of GM's C2 Corvette tooling and fixtures!

I too am trying to be a glass half full type of person!
Now if Zip could start up and publish all of the magazines I had subscriptions for that got cancelled in the past few years!

[Gary R.]

Re: Long Island Corvette Closed

Yeah the changes continue so far this year- paragon, Bairs, LICS all changed hands.

FYI, Corvette Steering used to supply the rag joints to LICS. Tom Reina stopped making the rag joints when the material dried up a few years before he died. Once the supply at LI dried up it was the end of them. No one that I know of has come close the quality of corvette steering or Saginaw.

[Frank D.]

Re: Long Island Corvette Closed

Yeah the changes continue so far this year- paragon, Bairs, LICS all changed hands.

FYI, Corvette Steering used to supply the rag joints to LICS. Tom Reina stopped making the rag joints when the material dried up a few years before he died. Once the supply at LI dried up it was the end of them. No one that I know of has come close the quality of corvette steering or Saginaw.

And Corvette America is Top Flight now; I didn't know about Bair's though.
There are tiers of restoration "go to" places and age, health, retirement and death have put many of the smallest out of business
Getting original radios, wiper motors, voltage regulators, carbs in some cases, etc has become problematic.

Now we have a spate of M&A (Mergers and Acquisition) activity consolidating the restoration industry. Can't say if its a good thing or not but usually when a smaller outfit is sucked up into a larger entity, the sales, pricing, service and delivery model is changed to the corporate philosophy. We'll just have to see how things work out I guess. I didn't see the LICS buyout coming at all.

[Bill B.]

Re: Long Island Corvette Closed

Sorry to go off on a tangent here, Michael Garver a few posts ago makes a good point about our antique cars not being driven as much, thus reducing demand for spare parts and the suppliers of those parts ...

I worry about the future of our hobby ... especially for those who really love to drive and enjoy the fruits of their labors. With quality gasoline supply eroding, clean air restrictions, electrification of vehicles, and possible future restrictions of "driving" an old technology vehicle on public roads, I am worried that our unique hobby may be restricted to restoring and just trailering our restoration efforts from our garages/workshops to shows and back again. I hope I'm wrong, but I can't help but envisioning my grandkids inheriting a garage queen novelty that can't be driven and enjoyed as I have had the pleasure and vow to continue to do so as long as I am physically and mentally able to do so.

To borrow from the Carrol Shelby quote in the Ford vs. Ferrari movie: ""

[Michael J.]

Re: Long Island Corvette Closed

I agree, and your quote from my favorite movie makes me want to drive the 50 miles to Cars And Coffee today with my '63 Z06 with the 4.56 rear end, 7000 rpm comes up real fast in several gears........

[Gary R.]

Re: Long Island Corvette Closed

I forgot about Top flight. At least Bairs sold to employees and was taken over by larger, profit minded companies. Also another big change as some know, there are no more usa made ring and pinions now. US Gear, who supplied all of Tom's vette gears for 40 years and who many of the vendors bought and reboxed as their own, sold out last year to Meritor. Meritor shut down US Gear automotive gears and only make truck parts. The prices doubled overnight on any existing stock, which is now pretty much gone. This leaves only Richmond, Yukon, and Motive- all imported gears now as the only vette gears. I hear about Nitro Gear but was told they just rebox, same as Yukon has been doing. Motive and Richmond are owned by the same corp now too.

The last seminar I had at Carlisle was back in 2016 and I was asked where I thought things would be in 5 years. I was thinking the hobby transition would be in full swing with a lot of older guys getting out and selling off their cars. I didn't think we would see the transition in suppliers as we are now. Hopefully the new owners of these places keep quality in mind but usually I see profit more of a concern. Seen it too many times in mfg over the years. Some of these new owners already have high prices and shipping mark ups so it will be interesting to see what happens. A good example is with the old school heat treater I used for years. He did high quality work for a fair price, he sold out to one of his employees who then raised prices on everything and lowered service. I used to get an axle hardened and tempered then blasted to look great for one price, the new owner doubled the price and sent back blackened parts. When I asked why they were finished he said it would cost more to blast them and he could do that for another $40 per axle. I stopped dealing with him after that.

[Michael G.]

[Frank D.]

Re: Long Island Corvette Closed

"Undependable"?.
ALL of my 60's cars from Mustangs to Chevelles to Corvettes have been uber-dependable after I'm done restoring them
I'm just sayin'

I agree with the restomod craze though, Billy Dawson of Corvette Corrections has been selling two C1 restomod frames a week, every week, for years now - think about that. And he is just one vendor of these conversions.

[Wayne H.]

Re: Long Island Corvette Closed

That's a sad end to an era for C2 owners/restorers.
I always trusted LIC to have correct parts.
Excellent catalogue too. Their catalogue was like a reference manual.