SMA gone

[aggiehummer...er]

Rumor mill has it that SMA went out of business as of 48 hours ago. Anyone out that way that can confirm?

[MarK M]

if this is true... its a good thing i got my SMA grill guard.

but sucks cause i was saving up for the SMA winch system.

[aggiehummer...er]

Confirmed. Done.

[nmikes]

do you mean they are batting the doors down and walking away, or did they get bought out?

[Demo]

NO WINCH FOR YOU!!

[Demo]

Really though, that does suck I was going the same route. I hope someone picks up the pieces, they seemed to have good products.

[hmrlvr]

Apparently they went bancrupt. I think my accessory guy has some of their stuff in stock though, I'll check.

[DarthKarl]

That sure brings the suck.

[HummBebe]

CONFIRMED....
spoke to one of their dealers today

Who is gonna wait in line for the Copyright and patent sale??????

[KJS]

I know my opinion might be the opposite of most, but with the prices and levels they listed at I can totally see why they did! even all the sma lovers and die hards have to omit their prices were flat out ridicules!

at least we can all hawkeye ebay for the liquidations!

[MarK M]

the question now is... whos gonna step up to make similar products like SMA. I know a few of my buddies were interested in the brush gaurd. How would they get one now?


boy, i'm glad i got it already!

[RFox]

Two of the local dealerships I visit often, both said that they had already begun eliminating SMA products because of quality issues, for at least the past few months. The Truck accessory store I buy my H3 goodies from never sold SMA stuff, and says that there are plenty of other accessory items available from other stronger, more reputable companies. Doesn't sound like there will be a shortage of any kind.

[DRTYFN]

Originally posted by aggiehummer...er:
Rumor mill has it that SMA went out of business as of 48 hours ago. Anyone out that way that can confirm?

Your rumor mill is slow. SMA has been dying for weeks. The first sign was them not shipping on time and giving lame excuses.

[nmikes]

I think some of it also might be that AM general has controlling shares of amstar wich has quite a few products in development that are pretty slick. You might have seen the link elsewhere on the forum... perhaps the bling heavy product lineup that SMA was offering caused hummer to go in a different direction... I think their winch setup is much improved from SMA's.
http://www.amstarfun.com/about.php

[nmikes]

What happened to SMA...

SMA Out of Business 3/7/2006
KM2 Limited; SMA-Billet, LLC and SMA-Patents, LLC all filed voluntary Chapter 7 Bankruptcy petitions in the District of Arizona today. A Hummer owner in AZ went over to SMA today and here's what he found. When I got there, there was a sign on the front door of the property management seizing all assets for unpaid rent. I was able to talk to the maintenance guy and they took as much out as they could and wouldn't let me look inside. I did see that they still had product in there however. The maint. guy did tell me that there was a brand new H3 all done up inside and left over. He even said that SMA left there brake and rotor supplier in New Mexico high and dry. He had to drive all the way to Arizona to find this out. Their phone already has been disconnected. It will be in trust for 60 days for right now.

Here's the rough unofficial story of Stinger Mac Accessories from what I remember with information from an industry insider:

Cepek started producing products for the H1 in 1994. The owner of Stinger had some kind of; from what I remember successful business selling something to the automotive industry. Stinger thought he'd come up with some of his own products, and apparently thought this was a huge busiess, so he rented a warehouse and set up an operation. The idea for the 'D' ring brush guard came from another old Hummer Dealer I think who's name is George Thompson from TN. He gave the idea to the Stinger guys at a Kinzlow event which I think was in 1995. There were virtually no H1s around at the time.

Around 1996 a little company named MAC owned by Jason Plotke appeared on the HML selling halogen headlights for motorcycles and Hummers. He expanded his line to carry a few more accessories but never impressed me as being a force in the business.

Stinger had the name in the Hummer accessory business but evidently it just wasn't that profitable. Next thing you know Jason Plotke somehow ended up taking over, buying, merging with Stinger, so
Stinger Mac.

Sometime later, around 2001ish, Mike Kenney entered the scene and merged, purchased, or again similar, joined in with Stinger Mac and formed SMA, Stinger Mac Accessories, and then converted in some manner over to KM2 Limited, DBA Stinger Mac Accessories.

Mike Kenney was in a steel products mfg. company and had CNC machines, etc. and purportedly
had deep pockets.

Sometime during this process, a guy named Cole Balzer, who once was working at Thousand Oaks Hummer in the parts department decided he wanted to go back to school and moved to AZ to attend AZ State.

His dad lived there, and so i believe he was living at home, but was not all that happy about going to
school, and ended up talking with Stinger Mac or SMA, i'm not sure who it was at the time, and went
to work for them.

Coincidentally, Cole's dad was a V-P with GM, and was a mucky muck of sorts, and so, the GM connection.

He was able to get them an approved vendor status, and was able to get an H2 long before they were out and on the market and they developed the the tire carrier and other products before anyone else had a chance, and at the same time got the GM contract for their tire carrier.

Somewhere in there, Mike Kenney came along and was going to take them to the next step based on his mfg. experience.

All of a sudden they became very snooty and thought they were God's gift to the business, and alienated just about everybody.

They spent a ton of money on just about everything, and moved from three locations into one, which was that 200,000+ building they have in Tempe.

Things weren't quite as great as they thought, most who spent any time there, figured out they were
totally out of control, and didn't know what they were doing.

When they had all the billet products, and their other GM products, they had a sweet deal with GM
in that they were the "Official" supplier of H2 products and the dealers were instructed to purchase those products either directly or through GM. I believe they were overwhelmed and could never supply the products in a timely enough manner shorty after the startup and built some defective products, like three versions of the tire carrier. GM recently cut their orders for products to about 40% of what it once was and possibly owed them a lot of money for tooling that was not being paid.

[DarthKarl]

wow...the whole story! Interesting

Thanks

What a mess. I didn't see anything standout that SMA was doing for the H3.

S.

[hmrlvr]

I just came across this for anyone interested.
"Didn't get to purchase that SMA Hummer Accessory before they went bankrupt? Well...you might be in luck, we have a great selection of SMA Hummer Accessories & Parts for the Hummer H2 and the H3. From the roof rack for the H2, the H3 Heavy Duty Brushguard to H2 logo Door Buckets & more".....Click here: SMA Hummer Accessories.hummerhub.com

[Hummer Guy]

Originally posted by Steve-SanJose-H3:
What a mess. I didn't see anything standout that SMA was doing for the H3.

S.

Even though I couldn't sell 'em, I thought the H3 brush guards were really sharp..and it would have been interesting to drive w/ one of their super-chargers...