Re: [HSS] James Coats

Unknown
Unknown
in Hudson 1916 - 1929





Paul, did you receive my email? Alex

----- Original Message -----



Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2007 8:36
PM

Subject: [HSS] James Coats



I have been putting off tapping out this email, but I think
the time has come to address this issue now.

One of our Hudson friends
has disappeared and I'm not at all sure what to make of it. Super Six folks
will remember James Coats as the fellow in AL that turned up an original
unrestored 1929 Hudson Town Sedan and shared some photos and expertise with
us. He freshened the motor and repainted it with a color he thought an exact
dead nuts match for the original. He made this paint available to Hudson folk
in a tin & as a spray. He was helpful & easy to do business
with.

James offered to install one of John Meadows brass floatbowls on
my 1929 Hudson carbie and go through it making whatever repairs were required.
We agreed on a price and I shipped him the bits and heard nothing for weeks. A
few phone calls & emails later, he returned my call one afternoon. We
chatted at length about the cork float coming apart and plugging the jets, how
he refinished the float & got the carb tuned on his own '29 where he said
it ran much better than the one he had. He was to ship it the following
day.

Two weeks went by and the carbie didn't arrive. More phone calls
& emails resulted in his finally replying to one of the emails saying that
he was very sorry, but the shipping place he used had held the shipment for
some reason. He would get it out PDQ. I have never heard from him
again.

Now months have gone by & the carbie is still AWOL. James
has not replied to many dozens of emails & phone calls. He has dropped off
the Super Six List & the national Hudson forum. He seems to have dried up
and blown away.

I find it very hard to imagine that he would cheat me.
He knows perfectly well the Hudson community is a small one, we all know each
other and need each other. It would take a real fool to mess with our special
relationship.

Until a few minutes ago, I had thought that he must have
had some mishap, become sick or even died. Just before I sat down to tap this
out, I phoned all of his numbers again and checked his website. The phones
were just message machines as they have been in the past few
months.

The website was a very different matter. This is a business
site <http://www.rideback intime.com/> for his limousine
service and it has a whole new look and list new cars not previously listed.
It was
last updated just last Thursday!!!

Now, I'm not at all sure what
to make of this. How could he be too sick or too dead to respond to me but be
well enough to buy new cars and put them on his website?

I do not know
what is going on here, but I am now feeling less charitable than I was before
I saw the upgraded website. If any of you see or hear from Mr. Coats, please
have him get hold of me right away.

Given the ambiguity of the
situation, I would urge caution with any future dealing with this man, his
company or any of his associates. Perhaps there is some innocent explanation,
but at this point, it is beginning to look unlikely.



Paul
O'Neil
SoCal
1923 Ford Model T Runabout
1926 Hudson Anderson
Coup

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