Friday, January 21, 2011

Spare Parts Aquisitions and their Stories

Over the years EI has purchased a number of large lots of Unimog Spare Parts. Each one has a story and over the next couple of months I am going to do a writeup/travelogue with pictures. If there is any doubt as to our commitment to the long haul in Unimog spares come give us a visit, we can use the help!
  • 2001 - Swiss Military Depot outside Lucern, Switzerland. This one has a funny story in regards to communication and sarcasm between cultures. In this case it saved me 80,000 Swiss Francs! Someday I'll take the time to write it up.
  • 2006 - Sabiex International Belgium - Sabiex had made it a habit to purchase all of the German, French, Belgian, and Swiss parts lots that they could get a hold of to aid there refurbishment of 404's for African militaries. When the governmental 404 refurb market had passed, they sold us their 3000+ tons of remaining stocks. 6 Months of logistics, and thousands of man hours got this into our warehouses.
  • 2010 - French Surplus Dealer calls it quits. 500 Tons, NOS parts.
  • 2010 - Mexican Military calls it quits and surpluses remaining parts stocks. - 30 Tons
  • 2010 - Belgian Surplus - Still squeezing out some of their parts stocks - Of Note, NOS Cabs, that we had thought were gone for good.
  • 2010 - Swiss Military Spares found in America! Purchased from the Swiss Military in 2000 and warehoused in Colorado, this was a nice batch of 40 tons.
So the quest continues. Hoping that 2011 will give us some time to sort out the 2010 purchases.

January in Denver - Yummy

Being a CA guy with an aversion to the cold, it takes a lot to get me to Colorado in January. However, if you waive 40 tons of NOS Unimog parts in front of my nose......you get my attention. Brian and I headed to Colorado last week to coordinate the move of a batch of Swiss Military spares.....primarily 404 and 2010 Mog parts. We flew in on a Thursday, loaded 2 x 53' trailers on Friday and Monday and flew home Monday night. Parts arrived in Vallejo 48 hours later. Now the fun begins.......


Arrival in Vallejo......it will take us a couple of days to get things coordinated so we can move around the shop and yard.



Ooooohhhh....Aaahhhhhh, mint chip NEW, not even rebuilds!