It's all well and good having repop parts coming out and even wanting to request new ones to be made, but the problem is that if they don't fit properly and need to be modified to fit, or the textures are incorrect, or the finish of the product. The thing that gets me with the repop industry is that there is fantastic you beaut modern technology, computer designing and the materials are supposed to be superior to anything made previously. How many times has someone bought a repop part, only for it not to fit properly or need modifying to fit, or it doesn't even come close to fitting. Same as the textures of a lot of repop parts not even being close or is totally different all together. Today's so called superior materials being well below something made 40+ years ago, like I had recently with a grille (Mach 1) for my 73 that was made on the factory tooling. Overall for fit it wasn't too bad, I only had to open up one hole were the piece goes to screw in the headlight surround and everything lined up quite well, but the finish on the other hand is atrocious. The grille is full of ugly marks throughout, bubbling on the honeycombes of the grille and even rough sanding marks on the top of it. I originally though I was sold a dud, so I called the guy I purchased it from and told him, so he pulls out the other one he had there to check it and he basically told me of where the marks were on this other one, not fully convinced of this, I asked a vendor about these problems with these grilles and was told basically the same things wrong with these grilles (except he'd never come across the bubbling in the honeycombes) but what I was told next really took me buy surprise, he said that he'd spoken with the manufacturer about these issues and was told that was how that they came out looking this way, but what was said next was what really got me. He said he was told by the manufacturer that these grilles should be sanded back and painted anyway as to protect the material from the sun? WTF, seriously protect the plastic from the sun, when 40+ years ago these were made and just put on the cars. My grille being 42 years old didn't even look half this bad in the finish of it and if not for the crack in it and broken mounting points, it would've been put back in and the so called quality repop part straight back to the place I got it from.
This is my biggest gripe with the repop manufacturers is most of what they make cant even come close to what was being made all those years ago, that would fit properly and didn't need to be modified and they didn't have problems in they way they looked either. So while everyone still buys this crap, they'll keep making it and not going to change the way they do it, but then again a lot of the times we don't have much choice either. I must say though the repop stuff doesn't seem as bad for our cars as some of the stuff over here for our Falcons, this is why I'm trying to buy as much NOS or really good used parts I can for mine that I'm restoring. The only downside to this though is you have bid against the rich cheque book restorers who don't care about the price, this is why I try to find good parts cars to get what I need. This is a problem though for us over here with our year Mustangs as there's not a lot of them over, especially being parted out. Seriously with all of this brilliant technology, computer designs and the superior quality of materials today, why is it they still can't get it right, or is it just a case of close enough, good enough, as whatelse are they going to buy to get or keep their cars going. Hopefully thing will only improve over time, but I'm not counting on it.