Solvang Roadster Meet

This is a great meet to go to with many beautiful cars, conversions and nice people. Since my association with this meet there have been 4 others who kept it going. One thing is for sure I stayed in my support and have been here all along. The meet is currently run by Harlan Katz. I remember 40 years ago, when the business was just beginning, a lot of people were turning my way for new parts and items I was producing. Then, I had some spare time to attend the meet, not like the 60 hour work weeks myself and my crews of 2, 3 and now 4 have been experiencing for 3 decades. I remember the many gifts I gave and how interested I was in meeting new people and saying hello to customer's, but it was never about workin the crowd with fake smiles, phony come ons, rubbin elbows with the person running the meet for favors and personal gain. I would never use a guy for self promotion or allow myself to be used like that. I played it pretty low key. I offered gifts, presented a flyer to go in the bags that were handed out to participants and just watched.

I even kept a boundary, when at one time a vendor was running the meet for his own gain. I made no objection even when my flyers were thrown in the garbage by one of his friends.  I always kept my head down and never used the gift giving or attending the meet to build more business. I stayed off the stage and in the back round.  I wasn't that hungry. No ulterior motive to gain anything. I did not use the meet as a springboard to make myself more important than other vendors by bragging about the gifts I gave or running down other vendors contributions to make myself look better.

The meet has grown over the years and every year, since the beginning, when Solvang meet flyers were available to me, I would put a flyer in every package that went out to my customers, many of whom did not know about the meet. I wasn't selfish about keeping the meet a secret so my customers would only know about me as a parts source. I knew that other vendors would be there to make sales of their products and to make their introductions. I knew some of them would be unkind in their opinion of us, to potentially curry customers away from buying from us, to buy from them. With all this I still encouraged and sent people to the meet.  This was my way of supporting the meet. From our records we show that we are the only vendor that sent out flyers in our packages for 40 years and we have been gift giving to this meet every year with our financial contributions that must be well over $30,000 in gifts. A solid gift giving for a show our support. We were and are happy to do it.  Dean