I still wish I'd get off my butt and put together a group purchase system so we could register our desire to have CanBack (or anyone) build one for us.
There has to be a break point where enough of us 1st Gens will get what we want and they will see enough of a market to make business sense.
I very much prefer can-backs basic design, based on what I see in their truck bed tops but I dont care who makes it. The basic things I'd like to see are a rigid frame, rollup sides, tough/trail friendly fabric, and roof rack possibilities. Can-back seems to have done all of this in their rumored 1st Gen one-offs. If we can get pictures or other info about these prototypes/one-offs it might help us decide quickly if we are in or out of a group buy, and lets can-back better estimate the cost, since they have built it before. Going to a totally custom boat shop or even kayline/speciality or someone who doesnt build a trail tough top could get complicated in trying to decide what we all want. The canback possibility seems to make that issue a bit easier, since both sides have the one-offs to refer to.
I have no idea if the magic number is 5 or 50 or 500 people in a group buy. It all depends on the builder's economics and how agreeable we'll all be in getting our expectations and requirements in synch.
I figure we need something like a petition/survey, from all those of us "potentially" interested in a canback top for 1st Gens.
To convince a manufacturer to make one for us we need to be able to tell them things like,
1) how much are you willing to pay,
2) how long are you willing to wait for enough people to come in on the deal + time to produce,
etc.
The hard part is going to be agreeing on what we expect to get. The tough questions on what we last knew about the canback possibility were
1) is a fixed frame (vs. one that folds down easily) acceptable,
2) does the possibility of having to freight ship the unit rule it out for you,
3) do we have to see it in person to decide, or are drawings and/or pictures of designs acceptable?
What other big design issue do we have?
Once we basically agree on what we'd be getting, there should probably be other survey questions for things like 4) preferred color, 5) removable windows & screens, 5) roof rack opening/hardware,
etc.
What other questions do we need to ask?
Is there anyone else that wants to help put something to track a group purchase together?
If I hear back from 10 people that are interested in a canback style design, want a roof rack option, and tough fabric, I'll think seriouly about putting togther a quick and dirty survey system that will let us keep track of the design options, price sensitivity, etc. until we can get enough people to agree and shop it around to canback and maybe others.
More back story on this saga can be found here
http://coloradok5.com/forums/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=firstgen&Number=261395&Forum=firstgen&Words=can%20back&Match=Entire%20Phrase&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Old=1year&Main=261395&Search=true#Post261395
