Circa 1975: Evolution 1.0 - The Beginning Precision International created their
first Transmission Rebuild Overhaul Kit in 1975. This is a story of their jour- ney of over 35 years in the automatic transmission rebuilding industry, as the industry leader in innovation, techni- cal precision and perfection, as told by four senior employees, all well known to distributors, rebuilders and Shop Owners in our industry. “How the times have changed. In
the late 70’s Precision International was building paper and rubber sets by the tens of thousands. We would set up our production run for TH350 kits and run
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it for a week straight to keep up with the demand of the kits”, states Sales/ Marketing Manager John Sollazzo of Precision International, the oldest auto- matic transmission kit manufacturer in the industry today. In the 70s all Overhaul Kits had
very limited content. The C4 kit had 28 pieces and the TF6 kit had 23 total component pieces in it. They were basic paper and rubber sets, easy to package and easy to stock. Shipping was a breeze. Back in the day, standard stock orders would be shipped to our distributors once a week, once a month, sometimes more if the shops were busy. Everybody knew what they were sell-
ing and orders were just to replenish stock sold that week! Precision knew exactly what units
were in every car sold in America. “Our market was geared towards just nine or ten transmissions in those early days.” Frank Miller VP/GM of Precision International says. The entire foreign vehicle line was less than 10 kits. There was Toyota A10, A20 and A30, Honda 2- and 3-speeds. Then you had a Nissan unit, one or two VW units and a Subaru! We sold mostly paper and rubber sets (no oil seals and ring kits) on the foreign kits then too. It was a busy, growing time for us.” Sollazzo continues, “Most of the distributors
GEARS August 2012
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