Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

signing new produc ts to cleanin g ashtray s, it just gets to be tOO much. "It isn't often in my life that I've said 'Preston , you can't do this. It's just not possible.' Failure is something that I'm not familia r with, and I frnd difficul t to accept. There's just no excuse for it. You have to drop everyth ing - just wallt away and quit in order "] was a slave to a mon ster, a com pan y that ] had created. ] felt ] was su-bordinate to wha t the employees wanted. " to fail. I couldn 't do that. I refused to let it happen . "There was someth ing else botheri ng me too. The compan y expand ed at a rapid rate, but 1 was so in· volved with putting out the day-to- day fITes that 1 lost connec tion with the guy who really motiva ted me in the first place - the guy who needs and buys what 1 create. When you get down to it, he's the motivat ion that 1 need to think up and design new things. 1 have to think about the average guy out there with his motorc ycle. 1 know what it's like to be him, because . I've been him. "I though t 1 had the solution . Let somebo dy else worry about what was already establis hed so 1 could concen trate on keeping up with technol ogy. In 1976 1 signed a three-y ear agreem ent with Scott to do the manufa cturing . Accord ing to the deal, they bought the injectio n machin es - the big mother s that do the physical part of formin g the produc ts. 1 still owned the actual molds, the part that dictate s the exact shape and form a fender or numbe r plate takes when it's manufa ctured. The idea was that they would crank out Preston Petty Produc ts on what were now their injectio n moldin g machin es, using my molds. I would then in tum buy the finished produc ts from Scott and sell them to distribu tors. That way if some· one else handle d the manufa cturing of established produc ts, Mary (Petty) could concen trate on just '1 can rem emb er n"ding down the trail with all this crap flying in my eyes thin king that it shou ld be possible to design a bom bpro offen der. " 30 business standpo int) produc t guaran tee. The warran ty sticker has always said (in slight legal-ese) that if you can break it, he'll replace it free. To this day about the only way you can actually break a PP item is to quick-f reeze it, then attack it vigorously with a sledgeh ammer . They never break when you crash. A J:egular, everyday disaster leaves even the most abused fender only slightly tweake d with some scratch es in the finish. As the produc ts caught on and the money started coming in at a fairly high rate, Preston re-inve sted the profits back into the compan y. He bought his own injectio n moldin g machin es (where he formerl y "jobbed -out" the actual manufa cturing ), moved his entire operati on to Newbu rg, Oregon , which put every phase of the business under one roof. From 1970 to 1976 he turned new ideas into supertough, sensible off-roa d produc ts that satisfie d even the most crash-p rone riders. For a long time, he followed his long work schedu le. He was runnin g the business in the daytim e, then mainta ining machin ery and creatin g new produc ts at night. A 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 a.m. day was normal . While the employ ees cranke d out plastic produc ts below, "pp" would be asleep in the upstair s quarter s. While in Oregon , Preston seemed to have just about everyth ing he wanted . There was the new airplane, a VW microb us (compl ete with a turbocharger ), enough comput ers to play with, and ample funds to desigo and create new things. Though the advanta ges of making good money were apprec iated, Preston soon came to realize that ' he'd created a multi-m illion dollar monste r he couldn 't control . "I got burned out in Oregon ," he says. "By buying my own machin ery and runnin g every phase of the operati on under one roof we expand ed fast. But it put me in a situatio n that I didn't like. I was workin g 18 to 20 hour days just to keep up. It was too hard to make the transiti on from being a technic ian and designer of produGts to being the manage r of a churnin g factory. You just can't take care of everything at once. "] coul dn't tell you the difference betw een poly ethy lene and Polly-wants-a-cracker. ] just wen t out, boug ht som e plastic and mad e a stac k of fend ers. " "I was a slave to a monste r, a compan y that 1 had created. 1 felt 1 was subordi nate to what the employees wanted . 1 had to provide them with tools, instruc tion and constan t supervi sion. 1 felt forced to mainta in a fast pace and fulfill obligat ions to the people that worked for me. All the time I couldn 't forget that my main objectiv e was to provide the custom er with what he wanted , when he wanted it - for the lowest possible price. When that entails everyth ing from de- ''Here's old Preston, stru tting arou ndfi gun 'ng he'd just conq uere d the moto rcyc le world. ] was feel ing pret ty goo d unti l the fend er star ted to d'issolven'ght in fron t of my eyes. " "]n som e othe r industries, dece ptio n and lyz'ng are the orde r ofth e day ... But with the moto rcyc le world it's different . .. You can't lie or be dece ptive and still stay in business. " selling the produc ts, leaving me free to build new things . ..A little while later I moved the rest of my operation, the promot ional, market inl:, order-e ntry and other phases of the business, from Oregon to Scotts· dale, Arizon a. The setup worked' pretty well for l time, but I found that I still hadn't accomp lished my goal. I was still too involved in the day-to- day operation of the business and still had the problem s of dealing with a major supplie r as well. There wasn' the time or the energy to devote signific ant efforts to develop ing new produc ts. "Then Scott made me an attracti ve offer. Th~ would 'buy me out' over a period of time and take over the entire operati on. I was to realize a steadl income , and any new produc ts 1 develop ed whicll were manufa ctured by Scott would be done on i royalty basis. To me this was the best of both worl , - no day-to- day involve ment and firefigh ting, bu both the time and the means to keep up with tm technol ogy and develop new produc ts. The deal Wa! signed early in 1979, but there were problem s righi from the start, not to mentio n that all the time Scot! had PPP there was no effort to keep the produce current with technol ogy. "Mary was familia r with how the operati on shoul work because she was heavily involved during t rapid expans ion while we were in Oregon . She w up to work at Scott to help smooth out the probl in regard to my produc ts. She was concen trating 0 exporti ng and also on the V.S. Racing Program . "This helped, to be sure, but the problem s gq critical in late '80 and turned absolut ely termina early this year - such that 1 had to take back m produc t line." As you probab ly know, Scott eventua lly went bell] up and filed a Chapte r 7 bankru ptcy in April. VI '

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