Product Review - New Porsche Engine Grills

[Cornpanzer]

So last week I was at Aase Sales poking around in the parts dept when Homer handed me a large rectangular box. Inside was a brand new Porsche reproduction engine grill. Of course he knew I wouldn't be able to put it back...

What a nice piece of jewelry this thing is. It would take an awful lot of work to restore an original piece to look as good as this one. The bars are perfectly straight, anodizing and paint is perfect...like I said, a nice quality piece. Comparing it side by side with my original grill everything looked spot on. The shape was the same, the spacing of the bars is the same and the way each bar is terminated was just like my original piece. The only difference that I could find was that the new grill has a slightly smaller mesh opening than the original. You would have to be a pretty serious anorak to notice that when it is installed.

All in all, I am really happy and think it will finish off my restoration quite nicely. Aase Sales also had some black ones in stock for the 2.4 liter cars.

I have detailed photos of the grill here: http://renn-spot.blogspot.com/

[Rick Cabell]

You forgot the punch line Dave. How much are they?

[platas]

Yes price please, also made in the USA ? They are selling some here in Europe, are they from the same provider ?

Great piece of work.

[Rick Cabell]

On Dave's blog, you can see the "Made in Germany" labels on them.

[Bill Simmeth]

And on Aase's web site you can see the price is $950.

[preS]

You forgot the punch line Dave. How much are they?

In Europe they are 450 euro but I forgot whether that included or excluded 21% tax.

Also the 65-68 are available for the same price.

Richard

[Cornpanzer]

Dave, You once told me in an email that a comment I made "takes the fun out of the hobby"... well, I gotta tell you this comment takes the fun out of making stuff for the hobby. I know for a fact that Marek has yet to break even on this particular item, he has done pretty well on others to be fair.

The making of an item like this is pretty difficult, there is multiple processes of stamping and extrusion going on here, and a semi hand finishing of each end to a particular length (the cross pieces). Since you are really only going to try to make a run of 300 to 500 of an item like this you are pretty much stuck with what the market has to offer on hardware such as the rivets and mesh. You can usually get lucky on the rivets (but not always, I have a wrong size rivet on one of my items), but the option is to usually have new tooling made to get the right size hardware made. This usually entails something like a 10,000 unit run of new rivets along with the tooling to make them. In the case of the mesh, Marek needed about 2 hundred yards of mesh to do his run of grills. In the marketplace you search the suppliers for a mesh that is the right size, and you get as close to right size as possible and in this case you get sooo close that unless you put an original one side by side you cannot tell the difference. That HAS to be good enough, because the alternative is having to make tooling to do a particular size mesh and then have to make maybe 10,000 plus yards run of mesh to satisfy the minimum run that the mesh manufacturer has in his production... and that's IF the mesh manufacturer will actually do it for you. Most of the time they won't.....

I have many items I have tried to make, but many of the times the problem is that the minimum is 10,000 units when you only want 300 to 500.

I've gone out on my soapbox on this difficulties of making items many times in the past, and I guess I will have to continue to do so.

So, Dave....unfortunately a comment like yours "really takes the fun out of this hobby".....

regards,
Eric

My goal with this was to help my friends at Aase, help Marek sell more and help anyone in the community who wasnt aware of this part (like I wasnt aware). I love it when I try to do something nice and then get lambasted.

Eric, I said it was a beautiful piece and I am installing it on MY car. Should I have lied about the one minor difference from original? This is a huge overreaction.

[Dmill]

DC:
Thanks for posting about these decklid grills, I was unaware they were available...They look awesome...hopefully your post will kick start a couple of sales and propel the manufacturer into the black...I think I may have fallen victim to this grills siren song....I hate it when that happens...<grin>

[Cornpanzer]

Eric and I had a nice phone conversation at lunch. He has a unique position of knowing exactly what it takes to mfg these parts and so my comment about "why not take it all the way in accuracy" was made without understanding how expensive it is to get that last 2% of accuracy. Being involved with this fight to balance cost vs authenticity would tend to make one a bit passionate I suppose.

As I said, this is a really nice piece and I will be using it on my car.

[QWKENF-911]

That's passion in my eyes what these gentlemen are adamant about..Kudos to you guys!!