Vinny Soviero
Mike Glassberg
Frank Miller
made deals for rings and seals and they would add them to kits as they sold them; the amount of kits the distributors had to stock back then was minimal and they were able to stock rings and seals separately.” The Precision International world,
back in the day, revolved around sell- ing 8 or 9 domestic gasket kits and 4 or 5 foreign kits. Michael Glassberg the VP of Sales adds, “We were sell- ing a C4 Gasket kit for a few dollars and squabbled over pennies in cost and price. Looking back, it was not a very complicated business. We knew what we sold and we ran with it. It was simple stuff.”
Circa 1978: Evolution 1.1 - The Future Begins As the industry's history page
turned to the 80s many OE manu- facturers started putting out cars with FWD units in them so the business became a bit more complex. Starting with Chrysler’s release of the A404
GEARS August 2012
in 1978, followed by GM with the TH125 in 1979/80 and then Ford with the ATX in 1981, the popularity of the FWD transmission grew exponentially. “As time moved on we started seeing more and more units evolving. The basic paper and rubber kit became an Overhaul kit out of demand and neces- sity, Sollazzo says. The number of seals and rings distributors needed to stock became a major problem. Most dis- tributors – and rebuilders - immediately understood the value of a complete overhaul kit from the manufacturer. We solved a lot of builder comeback prob- lems too.” Precision International was ahead of the industry curve. Kit manufactures and rebuilders
quickly learned FWD transmissions were much more precise and complex than seen in the past. “Our job as a kit packager became much more demand- ing and complicated, says Glassberg. We not only needed to research and develop the soft parts, we also needed to know the seals and rings required to
John Sollazzo
rebuild the unit. In the past we counted on someone else, namely Metal Clad Seal and Sealing Ring manufacturers doing the research. Now we had to know. We had to research, develop, test and retest.”
Circa 2000 Evolution 1.2 – Complexity Rear-Wheel Drive, Front-Wheel
Drive, All-Wheel Drive, Hybrids? “The future is now! “Fast forward to this century, car manufacturers are com- ing out with new units every year. The complexity of the units is almost over- whelming. Precision must be an expert on so much more than paper and rubber parts”, says Frank Miller. Sollazzo adds “And what the distributors and ulti- mately the rebuilders expect to find in a KIT has changed the entire dynamic of what we have to do as a packager. We need to have the overhaul kit, plus pis- tons, springs, and nuts included. Then we have to figure out ways to market the kit package that makes sense. Some
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