Been waiting a year for AMD to start making the 1971 Ramcharger hood with flap again. I've had over 20 offers to buy my beat for my R/T. I get soo many calls a week for Sheetmetal because they are out of stock. Anyone have an idea when they will start producing again?

I have no idea what is going on with AMD. Their forte is sheet metal, why they felt they had to "diversify" into areas that everyone else already had covered is beyond me. Sometimes I think they are slowly abandoning the Mopar hobby sheet metal. Look at what they offer for '62-'65....nothing. I predict the '66-'67 will be next. And then.....

AMD had admitted that its hard for them to make money on the mopar stuff. About a year ago they cut many of the mopar parts from their inventory. They have costs associated with setting up dies to do a run of parts and mopar just doesnt have the demand to do big runs of one part. Then they claim that the parts sit in their warehouse collecting dust, taking up valuable space. That is what they said in a nutshell. The only thing I can see they havent backed off on is E body parts.
As far as new parts, 3" wider wheel tubs for B & E are the only thing I have seen in the past couple years.
I got paranoid and bought all the sheet metal I needed for all three of my cars I plan on doing. One in progress and the other two on the waiting list.

Found one of the door skins I needed for my GTX locally on clearance, at Roseville moparts.

I mean, 69 Plymouth, so a very mainstream vehicle line with a high take rate.

Went there and bought it.
If I recall correctly the packaging date was over a year prior to the purchase.
Seems like they should sell more of such a commonly damaged part but maybe demand is lower than alot of us think it is?

I think the best way to drive more part production is backorder anything you need.
They don't know you need it until you order it.

I did the same thing, after they discontinued all the 62-65 sheetmetal. Saw the hand writing on the wall, and bought 1/4 panels for my 69 Sport Satellite. They have been in my basement for over a year now, and not sure when I'm going to start that project.

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.

Yup, in the end, the size of the market matters.
If you paid the tooling costs for Charger hoods, or let's say, Camaro hoods, which is the bigger market and better return ?
Every time I've seen an aftermarket Mopar part come to market, I've been almost as surprised as I've been thankful.
I made no money on the Mopar valve cover spacers I used to make & sell, in spite of charging as little as I could...and still some guys would whine about the prices.
There wasn't enough volume to keep going; and my costs were a drop in the bucket compared to doing resto sheetmetal.

I think the reason they didn't sell a ton of parts is plainly put, poor marketing. You would be surprised how many mopar people out there have never heard of AMD. Yes they have been around awhile, but only known for so little products that people don't realize they make car parts for dodge/plymouth cars. Classic Industries did a much better job at advertising and have now 10X Year One customers currently. In the end, Not keeping popular products regularly stocked hurt them in the long run.