CLARK’S Closed

[terribleted]

That is crazy. Why are liquor stores open?

Maybe drunk people are less trouble than sober ones?

[bbodie52]

Alcohol or Marijuana makes voters more passive, controllable and compliant, may be the theory.

Give them money and/or drugs to control the masses.

"Religion is the opium of the people" is one of the most frequently paraphrased statements of German philosopher and economist Karl Marx.

Perhaps modern politicians prefer the more direct approach?

[Bruins_Fan]

That is crazy. Why are liquor stores open?

Honestly, I think it's a good call keeping them open. While some stocked up, I think shutting off liquor stores would mean more people travelling around to find it. Not what you want in a pandemic. Let them run to their local store and be done with it.

[bbodie52]

The closing at Clark's Corvair Parts has been extended another month...

Clarks Corvair Parts has been required to close until at least May 4 due to COVID-19
You may still use this site to browse the catalog but can not place orders or make wish orders.
We will not be able to monitor phone lines or emails during the mandatory closure.
This notice will be replaced with an "OPEN NOTICE" as soon as we can open.

[joelsplace]

If they were all closed no amount of running around would do any good. I was thinking with Ted and Brad.

[Bruins_Fan]

If they were all closed no amount of running around would do any good. I was thinking with Ted and Brad.

Around here, they could just shoot up the road to NH, even if they were closed in Mass. Close all of them nationwide? Bad idea, that could acheive more mayhem than we already have. And I expect the mayhem to increase in hot spots as we approach peak in the pandemic. No sense in pouring more fuel on the fire!

Sent from my SM-G975U1 using Corvair Forum mobile app

[ragreeney]

In Pennsylvania, all the liquor stores are run by the state. They are closed. Wineries, breweries and distilleries that can accommodate drive-through sales can stay open. They recently re-opened the state on-line liquor sales web site and it crashed because of too much traffic and is still down. Maryland liquor stores are open and have seen a huge increase in business. Most of them are mom-and-pop type stores and small businesses like these are considered essential. They certainly are to Pennsylvanians.

[bbodie52]

My concern is not with the liquor stores, but with the judgement of the decision maker(s) in the State Capital. Using Clark's Corvair Parts as an example, why is a small business that does not operate a retail store for walk-in customers, and that is strictly mail order with fewer than 25 employees in a rural area that has little risk of virus exposure, and that has its few employees working separately in an open environment with several large buildings not permitted to operate its business with its own internal protective measures in-place, such as using accepted cleaning and isolation procedures and perhaps not allowing workers to come to work if they have been exposed to the virus or if they exhibit any symptoms, such as fever or coughing?

Clark's should be permitted to request a waiver if they wish to continue operating. Their waiver request could include justification based on established government/medical rules and the judgement of their owners/management who can evaluate their own operating risks. If they can satisfactorily follow guidelines to minimize risks to employees to prevent the spread of the virus through the continuing operation of Clark's Corvair Parts, they should be granted a local government-managed waiver to stay in business and to keep their employees working! If much-larger grocery stores and restaurants, gas stations, firms like Amazon.com, UPS, FedEx, the Post Office, etc. can remain open, small businesses should have the opportunity to remain in business if the apply similar safety measures to the individual operation that they are most familiar with! This type of proceural change would permit portions of America's business community, economy and employees to return to normal as circumstances warrant.

[joelsplace]

Clark's is exempt. They chose to close. According to the state's web site anything related to transportation is allowed to stay open.
https://www.mass.gov/info-details/covid ... logistics-

[bbodie52]

COVID-19: Essential Services
Learn about businesses and organizations defined as providing "COVID-19 Essential Services" under Governor Baker's March 23, 2020 Emergency Order, updated March 31, 2020

...Automotive repair, maintenance, and transportation equipment manufacturing and distribution facilities (including those who repair and maintain electric vehicle charging stations)...

https://www.mass.gov/info-details/covid ... logistics-



Clark's website posts gave the impression that they were forced to close by the Governor's mandate. Thanks for the clarification.

As of 12:00 3/24/2020 Clarks Corvair is shut down
due to Covid 19.Governor Baker announced the
order would take effect at noon Tuesday and last
until noon on April 7. The order closes all non-
essential businesses to workers and the public,
except for essential workers. Please note that we
will not be answering phones, e mails or
processing orders until further notice. We will let
everyone know as soon as we are back open.
We thank all our loyal customers for there years of
business and understanding at this time.
Clarks Corvair Parts...

...Clarks Corvair Parts has been required to close until at least May 4 due to COVID-19
You may still use this site to browse the catalog but can not place orders or make wish orders.
We will not be able to monitor phone lines or emails during the mandatory closure.
This notice will be replaced with an "OPEN NOTICE" as soon as we can open.

[joelsplace]

Maybe they didn't understand the order. If anyone knows how to get in touch with them it would be good to let them know. They would probably be doing a booming business right now.
As far as I know none of the other Corvair vendors are closed.

[bbodie52]

This is a wonderful story that I had not seen before. I stumbled upon it while I was looking for a way to contact the Clarks to find out if they are aware of the Massachusetts exemption for companies like theirs. (I did find what I believe is their home phone number, but I'm hesitant to bother them at home).

Transcribed and posted for your enjoyment...




HEMMINGS FEATURE
Clark's Corvair Parts
Chevrolet's air-cooled compact never had a better friend

By Dave LaChance from June 2006 issue of Hemmings Classic Car

Imagine that you're the manager of a parts department at a Chevrolet dealership back in those carefree days of 1959. You have a good supply of everything that's needed to keep all those new Biscaynes, Bel Airs and Impalas on the road, and life is pretty simple, considering how many parts those cars have in common.

Then Chevrolet drops its bombshell: the all-new Corvair for 1960. It's a revolutionary design, a compact with a rear-mounted, air-cooled, flat-six aluminum engine. The automotive press is buzzing about the new car's technical innovations, but to you it's a major headache. You have to find space to store hundreds and hundreds of parts that fit no other Chevrolets, parts like thermostatic bellows and pushrod tube seals and thermisters, whatever those are. They might as well have told you to stock parts for those new Vanguard satellites NASA was sending into orbit.

Little wonder that, when Chevrolet abandoned the Corvair after the 1969 model year, dealerships everywhere were eager to jettison those parts as quickly as possible. Despite a general perception that manufacturers are required to carry replacement parts for a certain number of years after a model has been discontinued, there was no such requirement in place back in the Age of Aquarius.

Thank goodness for Corvair fans everywhere that Cal and Joan Clark loved and believed in the little car. "Right about when everybody else thought the Corvair was done for is when we got into the business," Cal recalled. "We absolutely believed in the car. No way would we have done what we've done without that emotional attachment to the car."


Bolts of hard-to-get original upholstery fabric are stacked on shelves

What Cal and Joan have done is to create Clark's Corvair Parts, the world's leading supplier of everything for the air-cooled Chevrolet. From their location in the picturesque village of Shelburne Falls in western Massachusetts, they ship parts to every continent but Antarctica, offering more than 14,000 different parts in 600 pages of catalogs.

Look back as far as you like into the Clarks' story, and there's always a Corvair in the picture, usually playing a critical role. Cal's dad, Cal Sr., was an engineer at the nearby Millers Falls Tool Company, and owned two Corvairs, a 1961 and a 1964. Young Cal got his driver's license in 1964, and drove the '61 car. He and Joan began dating while they were in high school, and she too learned to drive on Cal's parents' cars. "It was like moving up to a Cadillac, going from my parents' VW to a Corvair," she said.

Cal began teaching during his last year in college, and could just afford a used Volkswagen for $200--"It was still cheaper than a used Corvair," he said. He longed for a Monza Spyder, with its 150hp, turbocharged engine, and periodically left notes on the windshield of a Spyder he saw parked on campus, never getting a response. Then, one day, he saw the tail of a 1964 Spyder coupe sticking out of a snowbank at a repair shop in the nearby town of Greenfield. Whether he knew it or not, the course of his future had just been set.

Cal and Joan, who had married four years earlier, bought the Spyder for $50, with the engine apart and in boxes, and restored the car in the summer of 1972, working in Cal's grandparents' barn. He was teaching biology and general science at Mohawk Trail Regional High School, and so could devote his summer to the work; Joan was working in the Dean of Students office at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. As they carried out the restoration, they came into contact with other Corvair enthusiasts who were frustrated by their inability to find the right parts for their cars.

That next spring, they decided to sell a few Corvair parts on the side, to finance their hobby. "We said, 'Let's start a part-time business that one of us can run,'" Cal laughed. Cal had worked at a garage, and was able to get parts at a discount through a Chevrolet dealer. He and Joan were living on the second floor of an old farmhouse, and got their landlord's permission to install shelving to store the 150 different parts they would stock. Their very first offering, still numbered C1 in the catalog, was a bronze shift bushing set to replace the original plastic bushings. Taking out advertisements in Hemmings Motor News, Popular Science and Popular Mechanics, they waited to see if any orders would roll in.

"We got a letter from a lawyer in Buffalo--our first thought was that we had done something wrong and they were after us!" Cal laughed. But the lawyer just wanted parts. The business did well, and the Clarks were soon putting up more shelves wherever they could, taking over the hallways and half the attic of the farmhouse, as well as half of the barn. They knew it was time to make a move, so, using all of their savings and a loan from Cal's grandparents, they bought a 1,500-square-foot ranch house in the neighboring town of Buckland.

"We didn't have much furniture, because there wasn't any room for it," Joan explained. "We had to eat standing up." They raised the bed high off the floor, so that it could also serve as a counter for packing orders. In the living room was the printing press and collator they used to produce their catalogs, and 50 cartons of paper. Their telephone ordering hours were 7 a.m. to 1 a.m., though they eventually cut back to 14-hour days.

The next steps were a natural progression: Joan left her job at the university to work full-time in the parts business in 1976, and Cal followed her a year later. "It was busy enough to keep us busy, but it always grew gradually," Cal said. In 1978, they built their first building in Shelburne Falls, and thought they were done with construction for a while. Then they discovered they needed another building. And another. And another. By the time they were done, there were eight, with a total of 80,000 square feet.

Why so many buildings? Joan and Cal kept expanding their production capacity, and each new operation required a space of its own. "We got to the point that, to get good quality, we got ourselves into all those niches that our suppliers wouldn't," Joan said. One of their first products was the cardboard kick panel, which they would cut from cardboard using utility knives. More heavy-duty equipment arrived in time, as did a timely assist from Cal's dad.

Clark's had purchased a massive dielectric embossing machine from a supplier on Long Island to begin manufacturing of embossed vinyl upholstery and door panels, and had ordered a die for one door panel pattern. Cal asked his father to look over the die for accuracy; the next thing he knew, Cal Sr. had taken the thing apart and reassembled it with much greater accuracy, using his precision calipers. Joan and Cal bought him a jigsaw and some bending equipment, and he got busy making the rest of the dies they would need. Today, Building 4 is filled with dozens of cutting and embossing dies made by Cal's dad; the door panel dies alone are insured for $500,000, and Cal is sure they'd cost more than that to replace. More dies cut gaskets, carpeting, upholstery material and cardboard panels. "My father made all but one piece of that tooling," Cal said with pride.

All of the seat covers are sewn on site, using new vinyl or NOS woven material that Clark's has ferreted out. How do they know in what order the pieces go together, or how many threads per square inch were used? It was Cal's dad, once again, who carefully disassembled each type of interior and recorded how it was constructed. "We could have done it more simply, and we could have done it more cheaply; we could have cut corners. But we didn't," Joan said. "In many cases, what we make is better than what the factory produced.

"They set up their own printing shop in Building 5, to produce not only catalogs but shop manuals and owners' guides as well. If you don't think that Chevrolet was eager to scrub away all traces of the Corvair, consider this: When Cal wrote in 1976 to ask permission to reprint one manual, a General Motors lawyer wrote back to say, essentially, "You can reprint whatever you want. It's yours." Cal keeps the letter well protected, and has several copies, too, just in case.

Some parts aren't manufactured, but remanufactured. In Building 3 is a machine shop "for simple jobs that nobody else wants to do," Cal said. Here, cylinders and connecting rods are cleaned up, carburetors are rebuilt (5,600 a year), and metal parts are finished. Starters, generators and alternators are rebuilt and tested before they go out to customers. Clark's does not rebuild engines, but can supply everything anyone might need to get a tired flat-six back into as-new condition.

Building 1 is the shipping center, where a number of more popular parts are stored; Building 2 is used for receiving, and for assembling Clark's 1,500 different "Multi Kits." NOS and used parts fill Building 6, while buildings 7 and 8 bulge with bulky used parts. In Building 8, Cal pointed out a 50-ton mountain of used parts brought east from California by boxcar; few Corvair collectors could stop with one, especially in the days when cars were free to anyone who would haul them away.

Clark's is not entirely self-reliant. It contracts with dozens of outside suppliers to produce headlamp bezels, shock absorbers, exhaust systems, emblems, decals and a variety of other parts. Working with suppliers is what occupies much of Cal's time. Sometimes it's a rewarding experience, as when a 25-year search finally found a supplier able to manufacture authentic molded fiberglass insulation for the engine lids of 1965-'69 cars. Other times it's frustrating, as when a supplier ran off a batch of 10,000 iron cylinders made to the wrong specification. Although Clark's did not have to pay for the mistake, they now need to find someone else who can supply the parts.

So much for the supply. What about the buyers? Clark's does not make public how many customers are in its database, though Joan revealed that Clark's provides about 6 to 10 hours of technical assistance to callers each day. "We'll stay on the phone as long as the person needs," Joan said. "I don't want you to get your order and be disappointed." What no one knows is how many of the 1.8 million Corvairs produced during the car's 10-year run are still in existence. How about a completely wild guess? "I'd say maybe 80,000 to 100,000," he ventured.

As much as they love the Corvair, Joan and Cal own and admire other cars, too. They've restored a 1963 Chevrolet Impala Super Sport, and are in the process of restoring a 1962 Oldsmobile Starfire. "We always have to have at least one Corvair and one big car," Cal explained. "It's got to be a collector car. I love seeing those '50s and '60s and '70s cars on the road."

https://www.hemmings.com/stories/articl ... vair-parts

[erco]

Hopefully Clark's does reopen as promised next week; I have given them a small fortune over the 40 years I have owned my '67 Monza. I live near Los Angeles and am lucky to have several alternate Corvair suppliers nearby, http://californiacorvairparts.com in Chino and https://mikescorvairparts.com in Mission Viejo. Both are open through the shutdown. In fact, Mike delivered some parts to me personally this week, he was visiting my hometown and we met up near my office. So parts are available if you just can't wait for Clark's.

[Bruins_Fan]

Our governor here in Mass. has extended the non-essential closures through May 18th. Unfortunately, Clark's website shows they are remaining closed until at least the 18th.

Sent from my SM-G975U1 using Corvair Forum mobile app

[erco]

And that makes Mike my new best friend.

[tomk1960]

Our governor here in Mass. has extended the non-essential closures through May 18th. Unfortunately, Clark's website shows they are remaining closed until at least the 18th.

Sent from my SM-G975U1 using Corvair Forum mobile app

I saw that yesterday and wasn't surprised. I bet that they could have stayed open if they applied for a waiver, but maybe Cal and Joan wanted a break. When they return, they're going to be inundated with orders and it's going to take a while to get caught back up. Don't be surprised if you place an order and it doesn't ship for a week or more. Luckily I'm in no rush and can get a lot done that doesn't require parts from them right now.