31 Jan Throwback Thursday
Everybody else seems to enjoy doing them, so we’ll jump on the bandwagon today. Let’s take you back to the magical year of 2010.
It was a rather busy year for Fluid MotorUnion, as we’d kept growing over the previous years and were busy settling into our newest location on Aero Drive, which is where we currently reside. That growth dictated the expansion of the shop, as well as the purchase of several vital items. One being the paint booth, which we installed in the summer of 2010. Craig’s popped collar was in jest and not at all serious, we can assure you. He’s much cooler than that.
The biggest change in 2010, though, was the creation of the dedicated fabrication shop across the parking lot. Since we moved onto Aero Drive, we had used that area for our dyno tuning, but also for car storage and not a whole lot else; fabrication was still operating out of the bays that our service department now occupies. Some nights, it would get a little crowded, as you can see below. Also, the dyno wasn’t in its own separate room; instead, it sat where our welding table currently is.
As we grew into our location, the need for a dedicated storage space was undermined by our need for a fully-fledged fabrication shop. So, after plenty of planning, we moved every car out of the garage and began reorganizing. First, the floor space was kept tidy by the construction and installation of plenty of tables and shelving units along the edge of the garage. This would allow us to keep things off the ground, increasing available workspace and evening storage.
We also built a dedicated dyno room with access to fresh air outside for evacuating exhaust gases. Moving the dyno from Point A to Point B wasn’t fun, but we got it done.
Once the dyno was moved out of the way and all the floorspace was planned out, we brought in new two-post lifts so we can work on just about every angle of the cars that come in for fabrication work. As a company that specializes in custom exhaust, you can see how this may be necessary.
And with that, a new chapter of Fluid MotorUnion began. We were now able to give fabrication its dedicated space, which served two great purposes. First, it allowed fab to have a boatload more area to work with, allowing us to take on bigger and better projects. Second, it allowed for the expansion of our service department, both in terms of manpower and the actual number of cars worked on in a given day. It was a win-win situation for us that has paid off in spades over the last two years, and will continue to do so well into the future!
As a final part of Throwback Thursday, did you know that our previous velocity stack setup for our Z3M Roadster was constructed out of raw carbon fiber, made in-house at Fluid MotorUnion? Obviously we’ve changed the style since then to aluminum, which withstands time and weather far better, but to steal a phrase from Biggie, “If you don’t know, now you know.”
Have a great remainder of your day and we’ll see you tomorrow as we end the week on a rather Italian note.
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