Hardcore Racing - Were they at Carlylse??

[hemi-hampton]

Ghoste, Yeah, OK, 3 Mistakes,   My Mistake. LEON.

[suntech]

Hi
I was visiting Hardcore Racing, when i was in the States 3 weeks ago, to pisk up my 68 Charger. They had the full rear quarters there in the shop, and they looked great.
Doors and front fenders are also in the prossess, and should be just around the corner, according to Chris Perry. I got a very dood impression of the guys there. AMD parts looked also great on the pictures. Does antbody know when the parts are available to order?

[Old Moparz]

Hi
I was visiting Hardcore Racing, when i was in the States 3 weeks ago, to pisk up my 68 Charger. They had the full rear quarters there in the shop, and they looked great.
Doors and front fenders are also in the prossess, and should be just around the corner, according to Chris Perry. I got a very dood impression of the guys there. AMD parts looked also great on the pictures. Does antbody know when the parts are available to order?

One of the guys at the AMD vending space said that the end of this year looks like when all their parts for the Charger will be available. (Also other cars.) I have a feeling it might be a little sooner since they had a lot of the prototype parts on display, but I am not sure of it, I'm just guessing.

It would be really great if one of the magazines would do a side by side comparison of sheet metal that will be available. The average person could never afford to buy both & try them out on a car, but the magazine could budget a project like that. They just wouldn't have the balls for fear of losing an advertiser.

If I needed quarter panels, I'd be buying from AMD if they can keep the price in line with Goodmark's prices of $599 each, & not Hardcore's $2400 each. Sorry, but there's no way a slightly thicker panel is worth 4 times the cost to me. I'd love to get pair of fenders as spares if I have the extra money some time.

[Aero426]

I'm guessing that if Hardcore is at $2499, AMD will not be $599 retail.    That is too much $$ for them to leave on the table.

[Troy]

I'm guessing that if Hardcore is at $2499, AMD will not be $599 retail.    That is too much $$ for them to leave on the table.

I doubt if they will be that low but you may be somewhat surprised.

Troy

[suntech]

Some here says that the AMD quarters are slightly thinner than the Hardcore ones. Exactly how much thinner are they?? ( in mm og thou)
I mean, if there are a difference in aa couple of thousans of an inch, who cares, but if the thin ones are just 70-80% of factory thikness, then we are talking about a noteble difference!!
Then another thought comes up: Why the hell cant they go through the extra hassle and make the parts in the right material, when they make the parts in the first place!! Looking on peoples opinion about this, i think nobody would have any problems paying 20-30% more for a part made in the correct grade steel!!!

[suntech]

Talked to the Guys at AMD just now, and they make them as close to original as possible,meaning equal thickness and gauge material, so that should not be an issue!!

[Orange_Crush]

The AMD parts are the correct gauge.  I never saw Hardcores, but if they're thicker than AMD's...then they're thicker than stock.

[Lostsheep]

Well, there was that one other little thing where they destroyed a 69 Charger RT for laughs.  It may not have anything to do with manufacturing a 1/4 panel but it certainly prejudiced some of us as to what kind of people they are.

Couldn't agree with you more, and it was like a 1 of 5 existing Warner Bros. GLE car. So its rarity just multiplies.

[Dodge Don]

I ordered a pair of full quarters from Hardcore months ago. One excuse after another. Then they no longer returned calls and their voice mail boxes were full. Then I sent e-mails which I know they received and opened (return receipt) requesting a refund. No response, no returned calls, no refund processed. I contacted my card issuer who has already credited me back and sent the charge back to Hardcore for failing to provide merchandise.

Something smells rotten there. Anyways I got my $$ back.

[JimShine]

Hardcore must be in an awkward position. AMD is hot on their heels and is aiming at a far more reasonable street price. It is going to impact their gameplan.

[Ghoste]

I'll try to pay attention and see if they show at Columbus since they were there last year but it really looks like it doesn't much matter at this point.

[Mike DC]

 
It's nice that AMD is chasing original guage materials, but the thickness of the sheetmetal isn't the whole story.  The steel in the Taiwanese panels is so full of impurities that it's noticeably weaker to the touch compared to the original stuff.  Bends easier.  This issue is doing as much to weaken all the repro sheetmetal as the thickness differences. 

The Hardcore panels were made in USA and they felt like it.  Stiff to the touch, like the original '60s Mopar metal. 


The Dynacorn operation has demonstrated that Taiwanese suppliers CAN get the steel right, but most of the companies won't push for it.
I guess we'll just have to wait & see what AMD actually produces.

 

[nitrousn]

Chris Perry from Hardcore is nothing more than a con artist crook. They wanted your money up front to finance their project. Do they tell you that up front?? They should be sent to prison. All you get from that JA is a bunch of lip service.

Jeremy and his AMD company will make an excellent product and at a fair price. When we last talked he was shooting for the 600.00 to 800.00 range on the full quarters. There is also some stamping issues with the hardcre parts. Jeremy wont come out and sling crap like the hardcore crooks do. He will however stamp a panel and market it in an affordable way and will crush Hardcre like a bug.

[0X01B8]

this may answer some questions:  http://www.amsnow.com/SNO/CS/forums/151099/ShowPost.aspx

hope they don't owe anybody here money...

[JimShine]

That link doesn't look good.

Here are some things I pondered. No accusations, just wondered.

The "test" stampings that hit eBay a few months ago with the extra metal looked like standard current quarters fresh out of the stamp with no metal trimmed.

How does one know the samples they have shown are not actually NOS quarters cleaned down and repainted?

Has anyone seen any tooling?

[Mike DC]

Two months ago, Hardcore were at Dukesfest with (what looked like) fresh quarter panel stampings.  Door panels, too.

Whatever they were, they looked fresh out of a mold and they definitely weren't the Goodmark ones.  The metal felt stiffer, the body lines were more crisp, they extended all the way up to the factory seam, etc.

I have no clue about whether Hardcore Racing is in financial trouble, is dishonest, or what.  All I can say is that the quarter stampings I saw & touched seemed pretty legit, and the Hardcore guys were talking with me and seemed very aware of the process of stamping them.  (The number of different strikes it took to stamp the full quarters, specific trouble spots on the current Goodmark skins, etc.)

Last year they wrecked the '69 RT at the grand opening of the huge shop in Flint (a converted car dealership).  They were throwing a lot of money around at that event.  Free admission to the whole thing, they jumped a Charger after just paying $35,000 for it, they gave out free hot dogs & soda, etc.  I wouldn't put it past them to be ripoff artists or anything, but I think major mismanagement of the money sounds just as likely.  I don't see the logic of trying to screw customers out of an extra $1000 on each quarter panel while also dumping $50-100K into an open-house event that they let everyone into for free.





(sorry for swiping the pics, Don)

 

[JimShine]

Ahhh, nice pic! I hadn't seen that version of the stamp before. If I remember correctly, the ones on eBay a while back did not have the sail panel.

[Mike DC]

It was definitely a new tooling.  Nobody could have started with the Goodmark tooling and produced what they had on display.

 

[hemi-hampton]

I guess nobody looked at the 1/4's as good as I did, They were not complete with the Trunk Gutters missing    LEON.

[Mike DC]

 
The trunk gutter was always a different piece than the quarter skin even from the factory.

The quarter has a little flange that lays over the edge of the gutter and that's where the spot welds are.  There's usually a little bead of seam sealer over the area.

 

[hemi-hampton]

I'm not talking about the actual trunk gutter but the lip or edge or whatever you want to call it that curves around into part of the trunk gutter to be more specific. Their prototype repop had no edge or lip at all just straight & flat. When I asked hardcore about this they admitted, Yeah, It's not done yet, We are still working on that part.   LEON.

[Mike DC]

 
Oh, I gotcha.  You're right, I don't remember looking for that at the time. 

I was so distracted by the fact that the wheel lips actually looked decent, I don't remember what all the other seams looked like.

 

[Dodge Don]

They were "selling" these things before they ever had a finished product. The first ones were apparently given to a major Mopar magazine for an article....surprise...they didn't fit. Among the fit issues was the rear raised spoiler lip was too exaggerated. They also had issues getting shipping crates made. Once they were to scrap the initial run, re-tool to fix the fit issues, they simply clammed up and nothing heard from them since.

There were so many dodgey signs on this. The way they hyped it up on Moparts and gave no direct answers, the joke of an EBAY item which was crafted to misrepresent what they were...you got the impression these were from 1969 factory pressings. It's very odd that given the number of Charger owners here, on Moparts and on the 70 Registry that I'm the only one that seemed to have placed an order. Because I used my credit card I knew I was protected anyways....if I had paid by cheque or cash I'd be out the $$ for sure.

Maybe they will pull it off eventually. Don't know, don't care anymore. I'll wait for AMD.

[Ghoste]

Of course it is summer, maybe we're being too hard on them.  Maybe they had to dust off the old big block Chevy to go racing.