It may seem simple to reproduce but I think if you start by taking a few
pieces and get quotes on getting them made you will find real quickly that
the amount of money needed to do the whole job would be huge. I'd throw out
a number several million $'s easily. Almost every single part on the Mule
is unique to the Mule. If by some miracle, someone had the original
tooling, it might be possible. But from first hand experiance (although I
do not know about the Mule in particular) when these government contracts
are terminated, part of the contract is to destroy all tooling, dies,
fixtures, etc.
For example, the extrusion die to make the deck sections, that alone could
cost $100k. I was just talking to a Aluminum die cast place a few weeks
ago, they did the die for the Dodge/Cummins valve cover, cost was like $400k
just for a die. All those custom gears, aluminum (or mag) castings with
cast iron inserts in them, etc, etc, etc. What is the possibility of
getting Ross, for example, to even talk to you about remaking the steering
boxes, or Alcoa to remake the wheels? You'd have to wave a large order for
them to even talk to you. For example, I found the company that made the
fuel pump diaphrams. They would not even talk to me at 1000 pcs, and when I
pressed them for how many would I have to order, they pulled the liablity
card and said that because it was military they would not do it regardless.
It's called economies of scale and unless you have a market for 10k to 100k
units (just a guess), the cost would be out of site, unless your the military!!!
I don't mean to be negative, and if someone was really serious, I'd love to
be part of it, but I'm just being realistic.
je
===
To unsubscribe from the mil-veh mailing list, send the single word
UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of a message to <mil-veh-request@skylee.com>.