I hear ya, but that hood for the Charger R/T was not really a slow seller. I have seen them getting sold pretty regularly as well as other products. I talked with the reps at SEMA for 4 years about the hood and how at the time I was buying them at $800-1000 each used because of demand and had as many as six 1971-74 bulge hoods at one time. I didn't know I was going to find another Charger since I was done with collecting project cars, but here it is. Not sure if the new owners just don't know how to market their product to the Mopar community.
In this day and age, I can't imagine the cost of producing a replacement hood the size of a 71-74 Charger. Even if you still have the dies for the outer skin and the dies for the inner structure that are in great shape, you still have the process of the actual stamping of each piece, the trimming of each stamped piece, and the the assembly of those two pieces together to form the hood. A factory that is stamping out the pieces has to run enough parts to warrant the stamping process and the trimming process of the 1st part and the change over to the 2nd stamped and trimmed part. Then you have to transport them from the stamping facility to the dealers to sell them, and then ship them to customers undamaged. By the time you get a reasonable profit margin inserted at each step of the process, and add in the labor cost, and the material cost at todays prices, how many of those seeking the hoods would still be interested?
Would there be enough of a paid demand to make a run of maybe 1,000 hoods (there has to be a number of items produced to be worth the effort to run the machines required to make the parts), at whatever the current cost might look like, with an added profit margin, If the company can not reap a profit for spending the money to produce the parts, why would they try? I doubt it would be cost effective to make a run unless the prepaid demand was high enough to cover the cost and the profit margin.. Inventory sitting in a warehouse on a shelf does not pay expenses. The good old days are gone forever. Its a hard new reality now.
