The bottom line for the club, and all of the clubs is their USA tax status... Every club that I have been involved with in the past has been declared as a non profit.... I have no idea how the California club is chartered, nor do I have any idea how the East coast clubs are chartered. If they are non profits, this is a non starter. They simply cannot buy Rick out and operate the business under a club umbrella. I have no idea of what the initial investment might be, but I am pretty sure that the combined resourses of the clubs would be insufficient. I was advised of this problem at least 5 years ago by a client when I was restoring the prototype MK1a I restored. He tried to get me to offer a buy out to Rick... I told him it was a ridiculous idea as I am cash poor and debt averse... though probably the right kind of person as I know what was used across the range of Brit cars. I have ZERO desire to live in California....
I'm 62, so the idea that I could pull this off, even if I had financing, is out of the question.... Not that I want the business to go away..... The best possible solution would be to get Moss to buy the business. They are the only US entity with the financial resources to keep it going. I have been a Moss distributor for almost 40 years. If they can be made to realize that a lot of the parts for Alpines and Tigers were used on a lot of other Brit cars, they might just buy it... I doubt that they would have any interest in the upholstery side, but the rest of the parts might represent enough profit margin that they might be interested. As far as support for Hillman Husky's... Sorry, you are seriously out of luck... as of late, the guys at Moss have told me that they are ready to start adding Sunbeam parts to their inventory for ordering....
Most of the Lucas stuff is used across the range, Rick sources wiring harnesses from British Wiring (as do I) ... all of the tops, tonneaus and such come from a known source. There are several sources in the UK that supply parts, some of which Rick does not stock... as for the mechanical stuff. I do not know... but this is generally not an issue for Tiger guys as the stuff is all Ford and can be sourced for many vendors.
I would happily contact all of my normal people at Moss if this could be made to work.
