Long article, première partie ici:
Unfortunately, as one GT500KR owner has learned the hard way, replacement parts for this pony car can be surprisingly dear. After an unfortunate incident with a critter on the road resulted in a modestly damaged front end, the owner in question was shocked to learn about the high cost of his vehicle's replacement parts. And as is increasingly the way these days, he aired his displeasure on the web. That initial report has since touched off a firestorm in the online Shelby community, with the issue spreading to numerous forums and chat rooms.
So just why were these replacement parts such a contentious issue? In the main, it's a numbers thing. As in $18,400 for a new hood, $3,392.50 for a front spoiler, and even $632.50 for a set of hood pins, among other things. Further, the disgruntled owner informed a forum member that Shelby requires any damaged KR parts to be returned to their facility in Las Vegas before new replacements can be sent out.
Obviously, a bit of due diligence was needed to verify the claimed replacement pricing and parts return policy, so we got on the phone with Jim Owens, vice president of marketing and communications at Shelby to get the straight scoop.
As it turns out, the parts pricing cited by the owner was correct. And while the hood's cost in particular sounds exorbitant, Shelby's Owens took pains to explain that not only is the part in question the only full carbon-fiber production hood available in a U.S. vehicle (read: it's expensive), it has gone through the same exhaustive certification procedure as any other OEM product – including crash testing (read: really expensive). Says Owens of the hood:
"I will tell you – there was no less design, engineering and testing - that went into this component... than goes into any other component in the exotic car world. It was the single biggest piece of this program."
Given the small number of GT500KR units manufactured, the hood's associated research, development and manufacturing costs turned out to be particularly high, and those factors were calculated into the replacement cost using an off-the-shelf parts pricing matrix. Said another way, Shelby says it hasn't grafted an exclusivity surcharge onto these KR parts () – it maintains that the company has used a standard cost formula to determine how they should be priced.
J'veux ben, mais tabouère, un hood qui fait le quart du prix du char... Chanceux qu'il n'ait pas été déclaré VGA! La compagnie d'assurance du type n'était pas sûre de vouloir payer ce prix, et je les comprend! Déjà quE Shelby font des vérifications avec les acheteurs potentiels de pièces (est-il un proprio actuel de KR, retour de la pièce endommagée), je crois que ça réduit déjà les chances qu'un babyboomer en achète pour sa V6... Pas besoin de mettre le price-tag en plus. Même Shelby, c'est "juste" une Mustang, pas une exotique."The last thing we wanted was a customer slapping a KR carbon fiber hood on his V6"
Après discussions, Shelby a décidé de couper le prix du capot de 50%...
(signe qu'ils font encore du profit dessus)
Il paraît que le vieux torrieux charge 50$ juste pour un autographe...