Drove a Ford Pinto in and a Mercedes Benz out
Before I started Kinetic Die Casting Company, in the early 80′s, “John” visited me at a different die casting company. He drove into my parking lot in a green Ford Pinto, about 10 years old. John was an interesting man, a magician who frequented magic clubs and visited Las Vegas on occasion. The most remarkable thing I remember about John other than his red hair was the gold nugget ring he wore.
John’s visit was regarding a new auto parts product idea. He told me that there was only one type of “Auto License Plate Frame” available. It was a flat plastic frame, in black or white typically, that was occasionally painted or had a sticker with the name of automobile dealerships (If you can remember, in the early 1980′s, he was right)
John had an idea for a new product. A license Plate Frame that was made of “metal” that look like gold and needed to look like gold nuggets “just like his gold nugget ring”. John pointed at the ring on his finger as he told me what he wanted. Seemed like a good idea to me so we proceeded to make the tooling for his “Gold Nugget License Plate Frame”. John sold several thousands of these frames and came to me with another idea.
John wanted a License Frame that looked like a “Silver or Gold Chain”. Within a year, John had other ideas for frames that I had made for him.
About a year and a half to two years after meeting John the first time, he drove his new Mercedez Benz to my office with the buyer of his license frame business. The buyer was a larger auto parts manufacturer. John made a lot of money on his ideas. His investment of a few thousand dollars for die casting tooling was well spent.
John, if you see this, please visit me and show me a few more card tricks.
Tags: auto parts, newsletter, Tooling Die Casting
