EAG, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

My gate doesn´t look like that and i´m fourth season/20k miles in with my EAG conversion without any issues. EAG have always been fair to me and the support has been second to none.

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I'm glad you had a positive experience. Unfortunately many others didn't. While I don't think the EAG parts are as quality as Dr. S, I didn't mean to imply that they are guaranteed to fail. That gate looks much better. They must have revised it.

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I wouldn't say i take pleasure in others misery. However after having a very negative experience any time I interacted with anyone from EAG and seeing how many people were treated poorly by them, I wouldn't say I feel any level of sympathy.

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Has there been a failure of a EAG tower assembly and when did that happen? Been following the general conversion discussion since the beginning but must have missed that one.

 

I do not work for EAG so I do not have that data. Most companies don't go around parading their mistakes. What I do have is a background in casting and machining going back to my early 20s. The only reason I can see for making the shifter that way is that it is cheaper and easier to do so. If it was that superior, I would imagine the factory and other conversion companies would have done the same, but they did not.

Again, I'm not saying that makes that part guaranteed to fail. That part doesn't receive that much stress. However if you are paying double the going rate, wouldn't you want it one piece cast?

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As someone who runs a small business on the side, it's pretty simple. Don't take clients' money if you don't have inventory to complete the job, don't promise the world if you can't provide it, and if anything goes wrong, overcommunicate with your clients.

Art was notorious for having horrific communications with people who were spending mid-5 figures with him. People wouldn't hear from him for months and would literally have to go through unrelated third parties (ttforcefed) to get info on the status / location of their cars and conversions.

It was some combination of greed and stupidity that led to them getting massively behind and promising customers unrealistic timeframes for conversions. They clearly needed someone responsible for customer relations / general organization. Holding on to customer parts, not giving status updates, overpromising, underdelivering, all with a holier-than-thou attitude is wild to me when you are a business that is only surviving because of your reputation.

I think the underlying concept (manual conversions) is a great one, and I don't have an issue with charging a premium over competitors if you are actually providing a premium service to every customer (great communications / status updates, realistic timeframe, easy warranty process, etc). They were laughably inconsistent on that front and that's why you see the controversy.

 

Here are a couple pics of my EAG conversion.

I am not taking sides in the money / ownership parts of all this.

I will say I am very happy with my EAG conversion. Yes, it took longer than I had hoped, but otherwise the work and quality are very good. The project was exactly the cost I agreed to and the costs of the other "while we are in there" stuff (motor mounts, new clutch, etc. etc.) were very fair and well done.

I live in Austin so I was able to visit during the process. I was always impressed with the activity of the place (on the car-work side, the design side and machining side). From my perspective it was a very active REAL business doing real things. As a car nerd, it was always cool to visit. Again, I have no knowledge of the books, agreements, finance, HR, etc. I am just speaking as one actual customer who physically visited the place multiple times. I also can't say how much of all that was Art directly or his team members. I did observe that many times I was there, Art was under a dash or in an engine compartment working.

I do think, when all this dust settles -- however it settles -- Art should be credited at the very least with popularizing the conversion option for the 'everyman'. I know he was not the first to do a conversion, but was the first that I know of to make it accessible, repeatable and seemingly within reach of the non-maga-buck 360/430 owner.

Obviously others have had (very) different experiences and opinions. Obviously, too, there are some unstated alternate agendas woven into these EAG threads. I believe the savvy F-chat member is smart enough to sniff those out.

My last comment, I need to add my name to the loooong list of TREV360 fans! I knew of him from F-chat and benefitted from his magic work through EAG. He has also been super supportive directly. Not only do I appreciate his stellar knowledge, but also his even-handedness and the generous detail in his posts to the F-car community.

-mark (fossilfuel), austin

 

Interestingly enough, while Eastman Kodak literally invented the digital camera, even they couldn’t get out of their own way.

 

I don't want to pile on Art here, but what you wrote is the bottom line. I hosted Art and his crew in my home for 5 days while they did my conversion. I liked all of them, with the exception of the guy that handled customer relations. He didn't seem to do anything other than watch videos on his smartphone and didn't have much interpersonal skills I could ascertain.

I was happy with the conversion, but Art owed me work after they left and he never followed up on it despite multiple gentle nudging by me. I did hold back $3,000 in retainage for him to complete it, but he never did.

For that reason (loss of confidence), and that reason alone, I sold the car to NGSC in 2022. I lost faith in Art's word to back up any future warranty claim. I really admire visionaries and entrepreneurs whom can go from nothing and make something. But in the end, it comes down to execution and recognizing your weaknesses and mitigating them.

If Art starts up again, I would advise him to be Wozniak and let someone else be Steve Jobs.

Art's appeal to Yi isn't really going to help. If Yi truly is a billionaire, Art's business isn't even a rounding error for him and he won't pay any attention to any of it other than to dispatch a team of lawyers. Anyone that has an unfinished car is the real victim here and I hope they are made whole without too much pain.

To those that own conversions now, you too are a victim of this circumstance. With the dissolution of EAG, the custom parts etc., this is not going to help you on resale once the word gets out to the broader enthusiast community. It's a shame. All of this could have been avoided. Art had been given advice from dozens of well respected people on how to solve his issues and create a sustaining company he could pass down to his children to grow but his need for instant gratification and his hubris did him in. The EAG saga is Shakespearean.

 

Thats just hilarious.

 

If Art were the only employee at the company you could lay all of this at his feet. But for the last year there was a small cavalry, including John Yi's guy, John Henkel, before that Chris Huess. So, ... the entire team did everything right and Art was the problem? Geeze they outnumber him like 5 to one. Who was responsible for the books, and payments and managing the P&L? We know Art is usually under a car or on the road, .... Being late, arrogant, optimistic or unrealistic is not... illegal. Breaking contractual terms and ignoring fiduciary responsibilities to a company (EAG) isn't right no matter what kind of beaf any employee had with another. I'm speculating like everyone else. We're all dying for evidence.

 

Art had 75% ownership of EAG, so he gets at least 75% of the blame. But in reality, if you own at least 51%, you have full control of the company, and 100% of the blame.

 

Thats actually a nicer gate it seems. The one I got was a different color steel and had a weird clear coating on it....and since it was not centered it would grind up to the side of the gate and the coating would scratch off.
Heres a picture of examples Ive seen on 3 EAG gates including mine.
1st is mine and I cleaned it up because I sold it when I first got it for a OEM that I use now but you can see the coating coming off.
2nd is a friends car had the same thing and this was about when he got it delivered fresh and this is what mine used to look like.
3rd is a car I saw at a shop randomly. You can see the coating coming off too on 1st and 2nd gear side. ON this car the shifter kept getting stuck to the right and would just sit there it wouldn't go back to center, it also had weird green glue inside it. It came in for cable adjustments but didnt work. This car was going back to EAG for repair work. My friend from Hawaii had the same problem on his EAG conversion and I read here that, that owner got the Tower replaced by EAG which is good...but If EAG is not going to be around that sucks for exciting customers who might need a "updated version" later since the parts are so custom.

I dont think the tower actually breaks but it will get looser and looser if you dont feel it already. On mine the side to side wobble got worse and worse so I wouldn't call it failing buttttt the loose side to side feeling really really kills the shifting experience because you want it to feel precise like bolt action rifle.

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Also I've worked with people like Art... it sounds like its mismanagement of funds which then leads to lies and lies and promises, then embezzlement which was a part of mismanaging funds with more promises and lies to investors and to anyone around them, and then the investors got fed up with it/him and asset seized everything to recoup the investments. Seems this happens exactly the same in any business when you mismanage money and spend more than should

 

Looking back over my career, working in various shops etc..this is not unusual in the automotive shop world. Especially if the ramp-up in business and funds happens quickly. Owner get the "invincible" sickness and start spending money before they have it.

I call it the Range Rover effect. Every shop owner buys a new Range Rover when the money starts coming in. Any time I see that..that business is going to experience a real.bumpy road in the near future. It's ALWAYS the owners with the holes in their hands..ALWAYS. The finger pointing never stops.

 

You can’t accelerate the growth of a company if you’re out there spending most of your time wrenching. If you feel the need to wrench and that is the only way, then you can only grow as fast as you wrench.

This is personal advice given in the very early stages of my manufacturing business from an entrepreneurial mentor. From that day forward, I stepped away from any physical manufacturing task. I either gave instructions or looked for people to hire to follow my instructions. I came to the realization that is my true role as the head of the business if I wanted growth and I needed to embrace it. Every min wasted doing the physical labor work is a min that could have been used finding the right person to do the job.

 

The ideal entrepreneur is someone extremely resourceful. His job is to find people to perform all tasks needed and make it all work together. That is a skill. An entrepreneur is not the guy who thinks he can get it all done himself. It’s the opposite.

 

Its true but in his case ...it would have been better if he just kept wrenching as a employee than an owner, with no control over the money. I give him credit for making a company but people like him are not capable of keeping/running a company.

even if he starts over, he wont learn and will have money issues again which will affect everyone.

 

Art appears to be a talented cook, but a poor restaurant owner. In his case, he should consider 25-50% ownership and find others to run the restaurant business properly while he cooks and focuses on new dishes. No one’s gonna do the real leg work to push the business forward for 15-20% ownership of a small business. A person should understand his own strengths and weaknesses.

 

Mark Twain wrote one my favorite quotes: "It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled." It's easy to see through Art and it always has been. We've all likely experienced Narcissism, but a quick google search can really articulate it succinctly:

• Having a Grandiose Sense of Self-importance ("having my Steve Jobs moment")
• Fantasizing About Achievements (claims from the very beginning that "EAG is superior to OEM")
• Attention-Seeking Behavior (prioritizing social media prestige and influencers over focus on delivering for backlogged Customers)
• Lack of Empathy (distancing himself from anything inconvenient or contradictory to his preferred narrative)
• Exploiting Others (taking deposits for cash flow despite)

This sounds like Art's EAG playbook to me. Dealing with this kind of personality is playing with a ticking-time-bomb, which is why EAG has been mired from it's inception.

 

Great points. Was Art in charge of the money? Did he personally send money from the company accounts? Is it possible he actually did as you suggest (stick to the cars, step away from the business), and probably left himself vulnerable to his former colleagues who have already announced they're starting a competing business? Remember, when the investor came in the picture, the funds helped pay for new/additional staff to deal with customers, people to perform the installs, to engineer the products, and most critically, to manage the cash flow. Finding the fingerprints on the P&L could be the most important step of an investigation.

 

Mired to the tune of 400 v8s and 50 v12 according to his video. "Never a dull moment, but still the best" is the latest company motto.

Is a grandiose sense of self-importance illegal, or proof of a crime?

Fantasizing about achievements... this is America, is ambition no longer in vogue?

Attention-seeking.. a.k.a. marketing?

Lack of empathy, that's subjective. I heard Art paid for the book keeper's Range Rover and never billed the company. And, he rented an adjacent apartment to his for people like John Henkel and visitors like Trev, or customers (like me!) or family/friends to stay, but the appropriate % of that cost was apparently not charged back to the company (duh, could have been - legit expense). If this is not true, it will come out.

Exploiting others; opinion, hearsay

Who doesn't love Mark Twain?
"Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn't."

 

Here’s an interesting article by Robert Farago, who has written for Hagerty. He seems to have some additional first-hand knowledge.

https://www.thetruthabouteverything.com/p/eag-and-me

 

Man… that claim that he was given a CUSTOMERS 458 to drive around - if that is true - that is literally gobsmacking. Surely the owner of that 458 is here somewhere ‍♂️


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I knew the company was garbage before, but the more I read, the more it's just plain criminal.