Engineering

First let me start out by saying that I am not an engineer. Nor have I ever claimed to be one, but it may be in my blood as my father was a top mechanical engineer at Republic Aviation and later Rocketdyne and my cousin Michael Apostal of JAR & Associates has a PHD in mechanical engineering and his team was responsible for fixing the Hubble Telescope after it was launched when all of Nasa's engineers failed to correct the problem. 

Now other vendors may purport their engineering experience, but mainly we ask what is the difference between a clinical engineer - them and a mechanical engineer, the kind we like to employ, when making our parts. While both clinical and mechanical engineers apply engineering principles, a clinical engineer specializes in health care, focusing on medical devices, technology and patient care, while a mechanical engineer designs and builds machines, systems and devices across various industries like aerospace and automotive. You can conclude a lot from these factual definitions and the misrepresentation that some offer up as qualifications to make parts. Kind of like the guy at a bar who brags to a girl stating that he is in the Recycling business, who actually hangs off the back of a city recycling truck picking up your aluminum cans every Monday morning. 

My families influence and guidance on many projects enabled my company to make the right decisions. Early on I personally made some errors that other vendors like to point to in joyful criticism, but in the past 30 years we've have always hired US educated mechanical engineersfor all our projects, who have designed, checked V samples for conformity and been the last word on how things are finally finished and made. I am largely out of the picture except to advise on perhaps how the part needs to fit or details. I then become the financier of the project. I leave the important engineering details to those that have the complete knowledge, that are qualified and experts in their field and they get paid very well.

Heads of companies are largely idea people who work with conception and then send forth that idea to come to fruition by others. I don't think Jeff Bezos designed any of the automation that gets an order out of one of his warehouses in under 6 minutes. Nor do I think that Bill Gates was personally writing code for every idea that pop into his head that Microsoft put into their programs.
The thing I have in common with these guys is that I'm hated for being able to run an efficient, competitively priced, innovative business for decades and I am doing it the right way, not working out of a garage, pretending to have a commercial address by giving customers a post and pack UPS stores address or work out of a barn in the woods. We have 4 employees that receive top pay, pay insurance on 3 million dollars worth of goods, pay City tax, Federal tax, collect California sales tax and are, you guessed it, 100% legit.
Look at our parts and then look at their parts. Honestly, if my stuff were junk, how could I have still stayed in business these 38 years? 

DatsunParts.COM has reproduced, helped design, and had re-tooled over 450 roadster parts. All these parts have been exclusively made for DatsunParts.COM. Everything from emblems to Sway bars to weather-strips to engine parts. Many of these items were never offered by Nissan as separate line items with individual part numbers. Other items have been improvements, in either price or quality, over the Nissan counterparts. An example of this is our line of Nitrile engine gaskets as opposed to original cork gaskets.

As a vendor, it's our intention to manufacture as many items as possible, in an effort to preserve interest and assist customers in being able to complete their restorations. We have always re-invested much of our income to produce these new items as opposed to pocketing the cash flow. We do this as it is our love of the cars and our way of supporting the community. We may not attend all of the meets anymore, but our interest has never been lost or misplaced...just shifted to a new found expression in the creativity of making greatly needed parts for our customers who love the cars as much was we do.

We thought you may want to know our thoughts regarding the cars and how we make a little dent in the parts world to keep them on the road.

Dean