BSCC- Fw: Corvair Underground

[David McMillan]

----- Original Message ----
From: peter cuipenski <cuipenski at bellsouth.net>
To: Bay State Corvairs (MA) bsc-list at corvair.org

<snip>Dave,
... I do not know if your aware,but Underground Corvair part's 
is liquidating,and going out of business.<snip>


Hi Peter,
Yes, Lon Wall is looking to get out of his business in some way, but I think he may still have some involvement in some way...there are other e-mails that he has been writing after his original post (below) that indicate he may be re-thinking...obviously, things change over time and the closing of Corvair businesses are inevitable...it'll be "interesting" to see what the impact will be.


<snip>
CORVAIR UNDERGROUND
1974-2009
It would be trite of me to say that this is the hardest letter I have 
ever had to write. It would be trite and, well, untrue as well. All of 
us have had negative events in our life, some worse than others. On a 
scale of negativity this letter ranks pretty high, but I’ve seen worse.
In 1974 I was young and stupid. I started a part time business that, by 
any rational measure, looked like an eccentric lark. For reasons I still 
don’t fully understand that excursion blossomed into a full fledged mail 
order business.
When my 2nd wife and I separated in 1982 I almost lost the business. But 
I kept stubbornly plugging away and, with the help of Linda (whom I 
married in 1983), managed to rebuild the Corvair Underground into a 
legitimate International player in the Corvair parts market.
35 years is a long time for any business to last, but very little lasts 
forever. 2009 marks the year that Linda and I will begin to liquidate 
our corporation. We’ve seen and had to make many changes in the way 
we’ve done things. That’s how you survive 35 years.
But the past 3 years have been just a bit much. First we tried to sell 
the business for somewhat less than it was worth. Then we tried to sell 
it for a lot less than it was worth. Then we almost gave it away. In 
every case the “serious” buyers passed up on a real opportunity, mostly 
because of a lack of funds.
I have had health problems before, but my heart/stroke surgery 2 years 
ago really threw a monkey wrench in everything. Add that to failed 
attempts to sell, losing my key employees in the process, and a general 
downturn in the economy has made the going rough. Truthfully I promised 
Linda Winter before last that we would not struggle through another 
Winter (Our traditionally slowest time of the year). And here we are.
It’s time for me to do something else. What that is, I have no idea. But 
I do know that it’s time to wind this business down.
Our intention is to have Corvair Underground closed by late Spring of 
this year. Whether that will be possible or not remains to be seen. Even 
though our operation is considerably smaller than our “heydays” of the 
past 35 years, there is still an unbelievable amount of inventory here. 
I would still claim that we are the second largest inventory of new and 
reproduced Corvair parts in the world. We also have about a quarter mile 
of shelving and a lot of other equipment and stuff.
Is there a buyer out there? Time’s running out. I may have to dump all 
this stuff on the open market and though “garage” sales. Not really 
looking forward to that.
If you have even a passing interest in our clearance make sure you’re 
signed up for our electronic NEWS. It’s free and easy. Just log into our 
website at www.corvairunderground.com. That will be the primary way I 
will be announcing open house sales dates and other breaking news.
So far as continuing to take and process your mail orders - that will 
not change at all. A number of our reproduced items will NOT be replaced 
and some inventory that requires large purchase commitments will not be 
replaced either. In the meantime we’ll keep processing orders for the 
foreseeable future just as we have since 1974.
Has Corvair Underground been a positive force in the Corvair parts 
market these past 35 years? Well, the age of self-promotion of my 
business has ended for me. Other people and history will answer that 
question, eventually.
Lon Wall