It seemed like things were going strong for musclecar builder Unique Performance with cars being cranked out and their family-type relationships with Foose & Shelby until a recent article on AutoWeek.com. The article was written by Mark Vaughn of AW who writes about how Unique could be in trouble after Shelby’s licensing branch announced it’s taking steps to sever their relationship after numerous complaints and several lawsuits filed by customers who paid for various ”Continuation” Shelby’s and have yet to receive them. Check below for the full AutoWeek article.
In what may be related or unrelated to this news story because of some sort of partnership squabbling, Unique Performance has re-scheduled their annual Unique PerformanceFest car show on October 20th of this year to sometime in the Spring of 2008 citing “celebrity scheduling conflicts”. The event is held every year around the same time in October. Chip Foose has been a regular to this event and Carroll Shelby has attended before. You can draw your own conclusions from this news.
Article from AutoWeek.com
Looks like Unique Performance, the Texas company producing a host of classic and modern musclecars with Carroll Shelby and Chip Foose badges, is in trouble. When we wrote about the company a year ago (AW 11/20/2006), things looked golden for Unique. There was a mini assembly line at company headquarters cranking out a number of classic musclecars at what looked like a good clip. We drove many of the cars and enjoyed them all.But since then things have gone south. Today (Oct. 5) Shelby’s licensing branch announced it has taken steps to sever the relationship with Unique Performance after numerous complaints and several lawsuits filed by customers who had paid money for “Continuation” Shelby GT-350SRs and GT-500Es (Eleanors )but not received cars. Those cars are refurbished original models brought up to more modern standards of safety and performance. Prices range from $100,000 to $200,000.
But Shelby customers weren’t the only ones. Unique Performance also produced refurbished 1969 Camaros and 1970 Challengers designed by Chip Foose and sold under the Foose name.
“We’ve been working with unique to resolve concerns that we’ve brought forth,” said Carson Lev, head of Foose licensing. “Chip is dedicated to the fact that he doesn’t want to leave customers at risk.”
“We don’t want to say, ‘See ya’, that’s your problem,” said Foose of customers who have made deposits on cars. “We’re trying to resolve those issues.”
Unique Performance also produced the Foose Stallion, a Chip Foose-designed tuner car based on the 2007 Ford Mustang, through a network of Ford dealers across the country. The Foose Stallions were manufactured at another Texas company called Unique Performance Concepts, a partnership between Unique Performance and a Fort Worth company called Tecstar. It’s possible that Tecstar could continue to make Foose Stallions without Unique Performance.
The Foose Hemisfear will continue production uninterrupted, since it is manufactured by MetalCrafters in Southern California.
AutoWeek was unable to reach Unique Performance’s ceo Doug Hasty.
Source: AutoWeek.com
