Steve,
RS fulfill a VERY valuable service for restorers/maintainers of early model holdens. If what you say is true (and I genuinely hope it's not) we will all be worse off.
I agree some parts can be quite expensive but I'm sure you understand the principals of supply and demand. There are also development costs to take into account, plus from experience I know it costs a lot of money to hold stock of slow moving items. If your local RS distributor was out of stock it would have only taken a couple of days for stuff to be sent from RS head office in Melbourne anyway. Have you ordered of the RS site on the web? I got a fair bit of stuff this way and delivery was always within 3 days, and no parts were backordered.
I just finished an 11 week rebuild/refurbishment of my FC and without the easy access to parts that RS and others like them provide (Spectrum, Harrisons etc) I would have NEVER achieved what I did. When was the last time you search for a NOS door rubber of door belt??? Go find NOS trim clips or a NOS dash surround!!!
I had some minor problems with the RS front door rubbers but with some slight modifications and some information from other club members I was able to get the rubbers to fit and work very well (I'll post a list of mod's and pictures soon). All other parts purchased from them fitted very well and I am happy to commend them to anyone else rebuilding an FE or FC.
What stuff does a Holden dealer still stock for FE/FC? I'm sure we would all like to know so we can grab our cash and rush down to our nearest dealer to fill a shopping trolley
Too bad you missed the display on Sunday, the rain was very intermittant, only two very short periods of drizzle on an otherwise great day.
Cheers,
Craig.