WCCC Price Increases?

I am curious. Did WCCC raise the price on their interior upholstery kits. I am finally to a point where I can redo the interior and it appears the prices have gone sky high for everything. Is it me or am I right.

Last July/August, when I had ordered the new vinyl for both front bucket seats on the 1967 had retailed for 395.26 minus applicable tax and shipping charges. Recently looking at the cost today the price has gone up about 100 dollars since then. With the stimulus packages, brought about by the economic downturn as a result of the pandemic along with an increasing reliance on subsidy programs there has been a drastic influx of GDP into the economy. As with any Keynesian model, being the expansion of credit through inflation of the money supply, the result is always a reduction of purchasing power leading to higher prices.

There are other distributors. Did you check Johnsclassiccougars.com ?

I suspect there is a tariff or maybe a materials driver to the increase. Tariff rates were adjusted 1/23 across the board with the new administration…and the price of oil has steadily increased.

Folks with older inventory may still be pricing with a lower acquisition cost.

As Don has told me, others will always have lower prices…

SO, try Summit racing
https://www.summitracing.com/search/brand/distinctive-industries/part-type/seat-upholstery?SortBy=Default&SortOrder=Ascending

The price of raw materials (commodities) is rising very rapidly. The value of the dollar against the Chinese currency is also dropping. The tariffs have not gone away, and many imports are beginning to show the full effect.

At the same time distributors are trying to increase inventory levels before prices rise. This creates additional shortages. Many workers are not returning as long as unemployment compensation is high and there is still a risk of COVID.

I am getting price increases almost daily. Every PO I place is sent back with price increases. And some are pretty high because the factory didn’t pass along an increase they tried to eat a year ago.

Deleted comment.

High demand with so many of us working on our cars, and low supply due to materials and labor shortages. I’m afraid we are about to see inflation like this everywhere as the economy gets going again. The good news is our cars should go up in value!

Not only did Distinctive raise prices dramatically this year the service has gone way down and the wait time for an interior kit is about 2 months. Some companies are slower to update their websites than others so if you see a competitors price that looks substantially better than ours jump on it! We are all getting our kits from the same place with very few exceptions. Anyone notice the price of classic cars jump in the last year? What I used to consider a $600 parts car is now a restorable $3500 project car. I heard a stat that 40% of all currency in existence has been created in (don’t quote me) the last couple years? Those dollars are looking for a home and keeping them under your mattress seems to be not the best idea these days.

For years that has been the threat but it never seemed to come to fruition as the velocity of the M1 money supply was low. That is changing rapidly! I sold my 1977 flag lot split level in a working class neighborhood last July for $622 and my neighbors were in shock. The new owner put $20k in it and flipped it for $709k last week! Keep in mind this is farm country, no Seattle or Portland!

The Willamette valley is prettier than farm country is here in Kansas. But wowsa, that’s California prices right there!

The Willamette valley is very nice.

On the pricing thing, we use a lot of steel here at work. When we get a quote for steel, most prices are only valid for three (3) days. When the steel is an alloy, 24 hours. Its getting harder and harder to get raw materials and purchased parts.

Ok, I guess I was right then. I tried to order but the price had gone up dramatically. I also tried to order materials from SMS for a repair on one of my trucks. They sent me a yard of material that did match but the last 24 inches of it was stained with a different color. When I contacted them they asked me if I wanted more material and I told them I already repaired the bench seat and reused the front of the seat since it was still good. I asked for a discount on my purchase since I could not use 20% of the material. They did not reply. This is getting nuts.

We normally tend to see price increases across the board come Jan 1 but recently it seems to be weekly or monthly in some cases. There are alot of things in play that affect parts pricing and availability like was mentioned. Currently we having a hard time tracking down OEM parts as I think we are finally starting to see the effects of plant shut downs that happened a few months back due to covid.

Steel prices have been rapidly climbing right along with gas prices. One of the manufactures we purchase service bodies from raised there prices about 12% this year due to the cost of raw materials. Its going to get worse with our current admin in office. Soon we will see scrap steel rise again too and along with it tweakers steeling your copper pipe and wiring.

I suggest if you have some parts in mind on your list and you can afford it jump on it before the prices rise. Typically that will happen when a vender reups their stock levels

Here is the problem. Everything is terribly backed up at the ports. If new materials and merchandise can’t get in then the price for what is available here now goes up.

“The Port of Los Angeles, via its platform, The Signal, recently began disclosing the number of days at anchor for specific container ships. The numbers confirm that some vessels are spending almost as much time at anchor as it takes to traverse the Pacific Ocean.”

Just an observation:

Some of the comments are getting dangerously close to sparking the kind of political BS that plagues other forums and turns a lot of people off. Maybe we should just keep it to this:

Prices went up. That sucks.

Don just wants a bigger/new Boat, that’s it, that’s the reason prices have gone up! plus the grandkids need new toys… :mrgreen:

They have always been that way… I had them do these map pockets for us 2 years ago, they got the tooling done over a year ago, I approved it, they ran my card for many thousands of dollars and now nothing… Literally take seconds to feed the material in and press these out. Will not even return my calls.

How so? Inflation is bipartisan, and gender neutral.

I’m proud to say that my prices have not gone up since 2008 when I started my refurbishment business. Mail costs have gone up, but with experience, I’m spending less time on average fixing things that I used to so I feel it is only fair to keep my flat rates the same. That said, many items I buy from vendors (non-Mustang/Cougar vendors) have gone up,particularly the past 2 years or so. Uninsulated butt splices have tripled in cost.

Interestingly enough, my son just got done working on a container ship that ran from Houston up the east coast and to Europe. During his 8 month tour there were no delays that weren’t due to weather.