where's Les now?-Classic Datsun really a business?

[Montezuma]

Jerry put it best, I second it.

[madkaw]

Well if anything- this thread will be good PR for Les:)

Glad to hear so many good things about Les. I guess I have been enlightened

[madkaw]

Just an update. I finally caught Les near a phone and he told me to send the defective ZG flare back. He said there were a few odd ones, not sure what that meant.

He also said he recieved my e-mails, but couldn't download my pictures on his phone?

So if he recieves the e-mails I guess he doesn't have time to respond?

Actually he has never responded to any e-mail I have sent him.

I'm trying guys, but not sure about this. For you that 'know" him, please understand this is nothing personal because he seemed very cordial on the phone. I guess this is the nature of the beast when dealing with a small market hobby car.

[Zed Head]

I would and will do everything to aviod MSA and that's why I gave Les a call.

Why do you feel so strongly about MSA?

[conedodger]

I just spoke with Les today... No problem. He answered his own phone and we talked for probably 1/2 an hour. He definitely isn't a one-man shop and it isn't a part-time venture. He has about 2 years of work sitting in his shop. Those of us who know what having someone like Les in the Datsun restoration business are probably a bit more patient... No one else is jumping into the business and with the rusting that is going on, he has less customers every day!

It wouldn't surprise me if he closed up shop and went to work restoring some rich dudes vintage racers...

[John Coffey]

It wouldn't surprise me if he closed up shop and went to work restoring some rich dudes vintage racers...

Adam Carolla.

[Arne]

Just an update. I finally caught Les near a phone and he told me to send the defective ZG flare back. He said there were a few odd ones, not sure what that meant.

He also said he recieved my e-mails, but couldn't download my pictures on his phone?

So if he recieves the e-mails I guess he doesn't have time to respond?

Actually he has never responded to any e-mail I have sent him.

I'm trying guys, but not sure about this. For you that 'know" him, please understand this is nothing personal because he seemed very cordial on the phone. I guess this is the nature of the beast when dealing with a small market hobby car.

Not necessarily. But in my dealings with Les I'd have to say that he runs a small, regional race-prep and restoration facility. He has a very basic Internet presence only because that is expected these days. But I figured out early on that he is far more comfortable doing business the old way - face-to-face if possible, and if not, by phone.

[conedodger]

Adam Carolla.

Yup. Just trying not to spill too many of Les' beans...

[Oiluj]

I'll add that Les is a very responsible source. I had a shipping damaged parts and he took care of the problem without question. I've the good fortune to visit his shop twice, and he is a very friendly guy. His shop is always full of projects and a visit there is like a Datsun history lesson...

I'll be calling him in the next couple weeks for some parts for my next door nieghbor's Z refresh.

[JLPurcell]

I received these photos when Les got back from his “Datsun Parts Search across America Tour”. Any one of us may benefit someday from his trip. These are the latest photos of my car. I really like the restoration of my original AR Libre wheels as well as the Toyo 14” DOT race tires suggested by Les.

[CDM]

Thanks for all the kind words and I know that I am horrible at trying to do so much different stuff so much of the time and I don't always go on this site to check to see what is going on. So I will update everyone about the issues at hand for both Jerry and Steve. Some you may know that we are in the preliminary stages of starting the restoration of the Electamotive 280Z a little known racecar built for the 1978 season to get Don Devondorf comfortable with a bigger car since the new 280ZX was coming in 79 and he had just spent 3+ years in the B-210 winning everything in sight. So when we purchased this car it was in the Dominican Republic and came with a bunch of extra parts which we could not seem to get shipped due to the busy racing shop they were at in FT Lauderdale Fl had no time to measure,weigh and count all the junk so that coupled with the rest of the parts for the Fitzy 280ZX we also bought and whose parts were stuck in Ga due to the same circumstances it was decided that we would do a road trip to pick all of that plus an nice east coast 510 vintage shell and a ton of spares that again would have been nearly impossible to ship some (30boxes) we flew to Virginia and picked up the 510 and parts in a 26 ft Penske truck and headed to Ga and then to Fla and then back to Ca and that trip took 11 days total and got to see some cool racing and Airplane related stuff that was on our way. We also picked up a trailer and brought Adams new 510 racecar back with us as well so all in all a long but worthwhile trip. But all that being said I need to say that most of my vintage racing customers do not normally race in the early part of the year opting to start in April usually and surprise this year it seems we have had to be somewhere every 2 weeks and have been to 4 events not planned into the normal workload for this time of year. My normal after the holidays schedule is to work on all the projects we are trying to finish up until april. But I have to say that we got Jerrys car up on the wheels and finish up the engine detail and did a ton of Zinc plating and powdercoating etc during this period as well as Dashboard work and finding discrepancies in

the dashes put away for several different project we are doing. now with all that going on Before leaving on the trip I found a couple small flaws that I missed on jerrys car and decided to take it back to fix them while I was traveling so we would not lose time and that worked out well as we were able to finish the correct dash for Jerry as well as Our new batch of correct glove boxes came in so we were able to give him a better one. The issue with Steve's flare became an interesting deal as he was correct about there being an area of the flare that looked bad so last Thur before leaving for the track again early fri morn I looked through about 7 different front flares both our old and new style and sure enough there was a flaw in all the left fronts and going all the way back to the originals I bought from a Japanese guy at the MSA show many years ago that he brought over from Japan. Some of you may know that I first made these available and then MSA used to get them through me and then they decided to copy mine or bought their own and made their own molds at the same shop that was making mine and we started to get couple complaints about 1 flare that was kind of more splayed out so it looked longer(they need to be pinched up while riveting) so we replaced that flare with the older one that was the same length and they now have an area that looks concave versus convex so They are currently repairing that flare and will be fixing the mold. We will be sending out Steves replacement flare asap. I will both call and e-mail him to let him know now that I am back from another race weekend. Thanks again for putting up with my ridiculous schedule and I am trying to communicate better but it has been no fun dealing with all the issues since losing my office manager Dennis in late 2009 and the fallout from that is still haunting us and will for a while still. This is for David and others waiting but the new Japanese front spoiler is now officially at the moldmaker and we will have new parts very soon. It has been my goal to redo the ZG flares but I have to have a car that I can mount and drill to make them more perfect in fit and finish so I may try that soon as I am currently going to part out the body from the 74 260Z new body for the Electramotive car and we will post seperately about this car as I would like to see all the good usable parts go to someone who needs them. We will be cutting off the rear 1/4s and are only planning to use the main shell and doors so we will take these parts and make the new flares on them. Thanks for the response and sorry for the long post.

Les

[AWC]

I can't believe you grabbed one of the few 510s from the east coast and took it to CA!