1964-1974 [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
Yeah, it would be nice if Motor Sport Service (of Jamestown, NY) had a Website. BUT don't let the lack of one stop you from calling, writing, emailing (hey, they finally DID get email!) and more particularly BUYING from them.
Top five reasons to celebrate their non-Webbiness:
1) This is whatcha call a mom-and-pop company. "Mom" looks after orders and payments, and "Pop" is back in the shop. Personally, I'd rather have Jack Lawrence spending his time developing and machining cool race-proven Sonett parts than putzing with a web server!
2) Comparison shopping is almost irrelevant because you just plain can't get some of this stuff anywhere else (or if you can, it's from someone such as the equally legendary Bud Clark, who doesn't seem to have a website either.)
3) Even the people in this biz who DO have websites can't list everything they've got. After all, they can't just call up a wholesaler and restock an inventory of crusty old Saab innards -- they've got to root things out of the woodwork. Whether you're talking Chip Lamb of West of Sweden Saab website, or Mats at Motorsports Sweden, or Jack Ashcraft or whomever, the fact that something's NOT on the website doesn't necessarily mean they don't have it or can't get it. You almost always have to call, write or ask.
4) MSS *does* have a catalog, or at least a price list. It looks as if it was typed on a manual typewriter (maybe it was!) and it's just photocopied and stapled together. But it does specify what they've got available and how much it costs, plus helpful application notes about which valve springs work with which lifters and such.
5) It's not as if they're hard to do business with. Just write and ask them to send you a price list, then call and tell them what you want to buy. If you need advice, ask. The great thing about the whole vintage-Saab-parts underground is that you're NOT talking to an order-taker at a call center -- odds are that the person at the other end of the phone is another old-Saab nut. It's as if you could call Microsoft tech support and have Bill Gates answer the phone (and not put you on hold for two hours!)
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