FE Power Forums
FE Power Forums => Non-FE Discussion Forum => Topic started by: AlanCasida on January 22, 2020, 10:31:49 PM
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Tonight I was looking at my what I thought was a Blue Thunder 1x4 429/460 CJ port intake and noticed on the bottom it has Buddy Bar cast into it. I bought this used off of Ebay so I don't what its origin is. Since Blue Thunder's (i.e. Thor Industries) main business is casting I find it kind of odd that they would have Buddy Bar cast manifolds for them. Could my intake be an over the counter OEM piece? It has no other markings except the firing order. It does look like an older piece too.
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Blue Thunder doesn't cast their own products, they use a foundry in California. Also, I've been told that the patterns for the Blue Thunder 4V intake are basically the same as the ones used by Ford Power Parts and maybe one other manufacturer back in the day. So that Blue Thunder 4V intake has been available for a long time, from different sources. If your manifold says Buddy Bar on the bottom I'll bet it came from a source other than Blue Thunder.
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I see. Thanks, Jay! I had always thought FPP was just a marketer for Thor Industries products before they started marketing them their selves as Blue Thunder.
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Alan , Jay et al,
I can fill in the blanks here.
Art Francis - retired police officer and Ford lover. During his employment ( LAPD) , "finds" Buddy Barr ( company) and becomes friends with one of the ( now) 5 family owners. He inquires about "old" manifolds they used to produce and "buys" the "Shelby" patterns with the agreement that the logos be removed. BOOM ," A.T. Francis " is in business and selling through FPP , Cobra Restorers , Tony Branda , and others , nothing "direct". Name changes to Blue Thunder to provide more product visibility and less to the now defunct FPP.
Buddy Barr was / is the foundry used for all but his cylinder heads. Art has great personal pride in making top quality parts. There are often "production lapses" that are frustrating for sure. I believe he is approaching 80 and the enthusiasm might be slowing.
Randy
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Alan , Jay et al,
I can fill in the blanks here.
Art Francis - retired police officer and Ford lover. During his employment ( LAPD) , "finds" Buddy Barr ( company) and becomes friends with one of the ( now) 5 family owners. He inquires about "old" manifolds they used to produce and "buys" the "Shelby" patterns with the agreement that the logos be removed. BOOM ," A.T. Francis " is in business and selling through FPP , Cobra Restorers , Tony Branda , and others , nothing "direct". Name changes to Blue Thunder to provide more product visibility and less to the now defunct FPP.
Buddy Barr was / is the foundry used for all but his cylinder heads. Art has great personal pride in making top quality parts. There are often "production lapses" that are frustrating for sure. I believe he is approaching 80 and the enthusiasm might be slowing.
Randy
Very interesting. I've never checked to see if they have a website, but they do, with a couple of interesting videos showing their casting foundry and processes. https://buddybarcasting.com/
Quality seems to be first rate and their top priority. They're also listed as a "Certified Tier Two supplier to FORD Motor Company", among some other big names in quality automotive racing products, like Mopar, Whipple, Arias, Roush Racing and Holley. But looking at the building from Google Street View, you'd be surprised that anything of quality was produced there....and employee parking seems to be at a premium in the area (which seems to be a heavy manufacturing district)..lol
When it comes to BT though, I wonder why, when somebody is advancing in age and losing interest (or the ability) to continue producing a quality product that is in demand, why they don't pass it on (sell) to someone who will continue the product. They only hurt the industry that they were trying to support. I get not wanting to lose control of the quality, or flooding a market with overproduction (obviously NOT an issue with BT with multiple year long waiting lists), but when you're nearing the final curtain, why bury it with you? Why hurt the consumer that you were supporting out of "love" for the industry? BT makes some of the best products out there, but what good is it if you can't even get the product?
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Doug,
I’m going to guess based on previous experience that the answer is money.
Far too often I’ve talked with folks that value their old nearly dead business WAY beyond what anyone in their right mind would pay for it. IE no one is going to buy your business for $600,000 when last years gross sales were $35,000.
I may be totally off in regards to Mr Francis, but it is just a dynamic I’ve seen play out elsewhere.
I hope not, and I truly hope that the awesome high quality of BT can be carried into the next generation.
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Art Francis is still an avid Ford lover, especially the Y Block. He has cast hundreds of those intakes for the Y, and made four revisions over the years, with a fifth revision coming out soon. I have ported several of them for forum folks, and they are in land speed, blown, street, show vehicles all over the USA. It was the only performance aluminum intake available for many years for the Y. I ported a set of heads and a BT for a Y block engine that made 585 hp NA several years ago. I had one on my EMC engine just this Tuesday for testing, and it worked surprisingly well. It has the Ford part number on it. Joe-JDC
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The supply of parts coming out of ATF has always been spotty. There's a economic reason for this. He needs to cast a bunch of parts in quantity to get decent prices from the foundries. So that's one bottleneck. Then to stay in business, and its a niche market, you don't want to be sitting on a bunch of parts for years. You need to cast them, then machine them and get the to the dealers. California might be a state with inventory tax, not sure about that. Think that Francis has his parts mostly machined in house. He's been in business for at least 30 years so he must be doing something right. Look at all the other Ford specialty parts makers out of business; Dove, FPP, B&A (intakes), Alan Root (C&C now making these parts).
One amazing thing, he's made a whole bunch of intakes, heads, etc. But very rarely do you ever see any on Ebay or swap meets. Just saying....
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OK, so who is this guy and how does he fit in the picture? Read his product descriptions (especially manifolds), see his location. His previous eBay name was "imamperformance". He always has a supply of BT parts.
https://www.ebay.com/str/Classic-Blue-Performance?_trksid=p2047675.l2563
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Pretty sure it’s Art’s kid.
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OK, so who is this guy and how does he fit in the picture? Read his product descriptions (especially manifolds), see his location. His previous eBay name was "imamperformance". He always has a supply of BT parts.
https://www.ebay.com/str/Classic-Blue-Performance?_trksid=p2047675.l2563
Nice to hear from you. Missed the witty retorts.
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Yes Buddy Barr Casting is rough looking from the outside! Yes parking is a premium ( out front) There are several buildings in the "complex" . The surrounding area is not very pleasant ( or safe ) especially after dark! Before Edelbrock built their own foundry , they used Buddy Barr . Ford has used them for 60 years. Casting plants (in general) are dirty . It is a harsh environment.
Blue Thunder does not do their own machining "in house". 30 years ago . manifold machining was done by Offenhauser. Now that they are closed , I don't know who is doing his machining.
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Pretty sure it’s Art’s kid.
The name is Imelda Chan if that helps.
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Pretty sure it’s Art’s kid.
The name is Imelda Chan if that helps.
Both places on ebay are "the same". An email from one got a response from the others email address. Not sure there is a "real" Imelda Chen - probably a pseudonym, nobody in California with that name shows up in any of the normal internet places (LinkedIn, Facebook, Whitepages, etc.). BT dealers like myself and Carl are locked out of purchasing from that ebay seller although we have no prior relationship with them - so we cannot even use them as a secondary supplier.
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Pretty sure, when I talked with Art on the phone he said they machined the intakes in house. That was about 12 years ago.
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Pretty sure it’s Art’s kid.
So Art's kid is micromachining parts he claims he's been buying from BT for 30 years?
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Art's son is Michael Francis. I spoke with him about a year ago when I was starting to make valve covers. He asked me why I was doing valve covers that were similar to his, and I told him because nobody could get his covers LOL. Same with his FE heads, FE intakes, etc. He said he is working on getting that pipeline filled, but that it would probably be a 3 year effort. I think they do a lot more business in small block and 429-460 parts, so that probably gets most of their attention.
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Interesting thread...I bought some FE covers from Holman Moody a few years ago.They sure looked like Blue Thunders stuff..Next time I was on the phone with Mr. Holman I asked him in a polite way and he said Blue Thunder casts them for him....
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I wasn’t sure it was a real name.
Kinda a dick move to block you guys from buying stuff.
If you are willing to pay retail, why would it matter?
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Spoke with A. T. for a few minutes yesterday. He sounded pretty good on the phone.
He says he has some of his non-FE stuff in stock (Y block and Cleveland intakes), and that he has a run of dual quad intakes in process.
He also said that the "ebay guy" purchases a bunch of stuff at a time and then sits on it until the supply dries up - then sells it on ebay at a high price.
No idea at all how to react to that, and still don't know who it really is.
I just tell potential customers to purchase the stuff from ebay directly these days...
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Easy person to buy from. Only thing that I took issue with years ago was that they would list the parts as if it were their own creation.
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I attempted to have a discussion with the guy in the BT booth at Columbus about 15 years ago. Simply polite, rather general questions. I ran into such a wall of indifferent hostility that I simply walked away. He may have been having a bad day, but taking it out on a polite customer isn't the way to do business.
I simply wrote him off.
I've been told that Jim Dove was a hard guy to do business with. I found him to be somewhat opinionated, but always a gentleman. The rule, as I observed, was that he didn't take kindly to aggression.
KS
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Buddy Barr make a lot of the aftermarket cast aluminum parts. Lenco cases, Whipple blower housings, they had GM Performance and Mopar intakes on display. I asked them about the 427 HighRiser and TunnelPort intakes. They did cast them, probably have the molds around but Ford would still own them and need to authorize the use of them.