Ive been thinking this for a while (may be a stupid question)


Noticed a lot of threads saying how hard it is to get hold of rare items.


Why does someone just start reproducing them?


Lots of plastic parts which I guess would be easy enough to reproduce etc etc


Always wondered why no firms etc havnt done this.


I know they wouldn't be genuine ford but surly that shouldn't matter if they are parts that you simply cant buy anymore.




Someone tell e how stupid I am and give me a list of reasons why not

 

Not a daft question at all.

The trouble is the cost of the tooling, there are not enough people willing to buy the parts at a price where you could hope of getting your money back.

 

I would imagine that the demand isn't there in mass for these items, .
It's ok reproducing them (obviously license permitting) but if you only have a handful of people wanting them, then it wouldn't be worth it.
To list other reasons:
Cost of tooling
Cost of license to reproduce froma patented part
Demand.

All of these things need to be outweighed by the amount of demand in the market.
Another thing, if you produced a part that you know would last for 10 yrs plus, then you will never sell another one to the same person as it wouldn't be needed.

 

As above, a rare item doesn't mean you are going to start selling thousands of them. To make a very small number, the cost per unit will be very high.

 

As 3D printing tech improves I imagine that one day you'll be able to model a part in CAD and reprint it at home without the horrible plastic layer lines that the printers seem to have at the moment, it'll be ace when it can replicate that texture on interior parts accurately.

 

You can buy plenty of reproduction mk1&2 escort parts I dunno why you can't for any other cars

 

I guess if you really wanted something, you could get a repro done, but at a big expense. Think about old rare Ferrari and jaguar race cars and the like, cars that had very small production runs, but surprising how they can be saved. Guess its easy enough, provided time and money aren't an issue!

 

Well yeah small plastic parts are fair enough. Ive always thought about things like mk3 rst dashboards and stuff like that. Yeah I do see the cost - demand for parts but surly youd have a market especially for cossie bits.