MTFCA Forum

Household name among old car folks, especially the Model A gang. They've closed their doors! You can follow the discussion on the AACA Discussion forum to get all the sordid details.

https://forums.aaca.org/topic/324147-lebaron-bonney/
Terry

Sad, but a sign of the times quality vs price.

An excellent company for many years and I will miss them.

Hank

Sad to hear. Another old car supplier closing. To folks 60 and up this is a name that been synonymous with old cars for a good while.
Things are slowly changing in the age of the net. Good luck to the company family.

Back about 1990 or so I applied for a shipping position they advertised. Didn't get the job but my ultimate goal was to become a trimmer with enough training. There was magic in that building

First of all it's LeBaron Bonney. They have had a booth at Hershey for years.

Many of the members in my 54 Ford Club used them over the years for first class interiors for 52-54 Fords. I wrote to them as a high school kid in 1985 about modifying their 52/53 patterns slightly to make them correct for 54 Fords, and got a nice reply back from them.

Too bad.

Hopefully someone else will step up to the plate, but they were indeed the standard by which others were judged. That's gonna be a blow to the hobby.

Did LB make any kits for Model T’s? Or did they focus on the A’s and later Fords?

Keep crankin’,
Eric

ewdysar wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 23, 2019 12:57 pm

Did LB make any kits for Model T’s? Or did they focus on the A’s and later Fords?

No Eric, -just 1928 and newer.


Actually the reason the company failed is not because of the internet but more about not keeping up with their training. Employee retention is becoming increasingly difficult for companies these days, and so much time is spent on training an employee only to have that employee move to another employer taking their learned knowledge and skill with them. In the case of L/B, they were a victim of this and it affected their quality and productivity.

LeBaron Bonney was not unique in having this issue as there are several other Model-T suppliers that have struggled with this.

Paul sold this business about 4 or 5 years ago to this new owner. The original staff also left so these were new people to the hobby but sad they couldn’t make a go of it. I’m next to them at Hershey and didn’t see to much action in their tent.