Re: Interesting thought
Supergonzo, Do you go the LI car shows? I went to 2 last weekend. One at the PAL Sports Complex in Holtsville and another at Flowerfield in St. James. While talking to some of the vendors (asking if they had any Motion parts) some of them express the same perspective about the Motion cars as you. One vendor was telling me he didn't think Motion was such a dig deal back in the day and could not understand why the Motion cars have high value today. He happened to be a vendor selling diecast models. I asked him why there are so many Motion diecast car models today. He just laughed and said "I can't understand it."
The fact is Motion Performance built cars that are considered SuperCar Legends. It is similar to the Sports or Music industry where certain people or bands become Superstars and others don't. The superstars don't always have more talent then the ones that don't make it but somehow with a mixture of luck, public perspective, and some talent, they rise to the top. MP did win some drag racing titles and did design some of his own fiberglass parts but a large part of the Motion legend was caused by Marty Schorr. Marty was the editor of Cars magazine and other magazines and did a lot of articles on MP. Marty still has a company called PMPR Inc. and works on automotive product promotions and still writes some articles. He created the Motion ads, catalogs, and promotional material. What Baldwin/Motion did was not all that much different then what other hi po dealers did but Joel and Marty had that special mixture of luck, public perspective, and talent, and MP rose to the top of the SuperCar world. I can still remember reading some of the outrageous Motion ads back in the 70s that boasted about 11 sec ETs, 9 sec 454 Vegas, and showed a graveyard with FORD, MOPAR, and AMC on the gravestones. Motion was building hi po cars that came with a 11 sec ET guarantee and you could buy them at a Chevy dealer using GMAC. They continued building, selling, and advertising hi po cars until the Government shut them down. MP history is all there for anyone to see, documented by the old car magazines. Motion cars are SuperCar legends.
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