Off road industry drama

Camper shell fun said:
No trail gear bought All Pro Off-road. It was just after they tried to buy Total Chaos and we said no that they started copying all of our parts.
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What I was talking about was early Trail-Gear before they started buying everyone. They had a few items in the early days that were Identical to Jon's parts. Maybe that let to the, "fuck it, if everyone is going to do it to me, then I will do it to them". I remember it all going down on Pirate4x4. They also copied Bobby and his Longfields. They own them now as well. But that is a good thing as they bought the company to support Bobby's wife after his passing.
I know a now defunct sandcar company that basically was building a clone Alumicraft chassis with a few different bends to make it "look" different. But all the geometry was pulled off of a car he previously owned.
 
Camper shell fun said:
Here's one not many people know.


(I will not name the companies, but I think you can figure it out)
Total Chaos started in 1998 officially as an official business and being that the internet was pretty new we didn't get a website right away. Well as the story goes, another company started in 1997 and they got a website fairly quickly. Well when Total Chaos went to get their website, to their surprise they were told "sorry, but TotalChaosFabrication.com has already been taken" (hens why our web address is Chaosfab.com) it took some digging but eventually Total Chaos figured out that the company that started in 1997 had purchased TotalChaosFabrication.com and set it up to re-direct to their website. But the fun doesn't end there, some years later this company then sold the web address to another company that is a competitor of Total Chaos in the industry and they owned it until Nicole called them and lost her shit enough that they agreed to sell it to us.

I also have screen shots from John Bonderaunt (not sure the spelling) who used to be the owner of All Pro Off-road from when he was selling Total Chaos 2" lower control arms on Facebook and when I asked why he said "I just bought them to make a jig, I don't need them anymore"

Take a look at All Pros website and look at their spindle gussets and many other parts that are a clear copy of Total Chaos parts.


Total ChaosView attachment 42810 All ProView attachment 42811

Total Chaos View attachment 42812 All Pro View attachment 42813


Total Chaos View attachment 42814 All Pro View attachment 42815



Anyway I guess I just wanted to add to this thread :)
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I have always been a Total Chaos fan. I met Nicole at ROR in like 2002-2003ish…..man I’m getting old. I helped out in the remote pits for TC racers at MDR races for a few years. Such good time.

What happened to Gargamel, the 80’s extra cab 4x4 truck Nicole used to drive everywhere.

Also does the “time burglar” sign still exist at the shop?

I have installed lots of TC parts over the years. They have always fit perfect and went on without issue.

I did a ton of work to a buddies 1st gen Tundra after he got a little wild at KOH and bent everything. He brought me a ton of All Pro knock off TC parts. They all fit like trash and require a ton of fitting to make work.

The off-road industry has always been full of drama. This recent run of it is nothing new. Social media helps push it out to new/more people.

I miss the days of no social media, having to meet people in person.
 
SByota said:
I have always been a Total Chaos fan. I met Nicole at ROR in like 2002-2003ish…..man I’m getting old. I helped out in the remote pits for TC racers at MDR races for a few years. Such good time.

What happened to Gargamel, the 80’s extra cab 4x4 truck Nicole used to drive everywhere.

Also does the “time burglar” sign still exist at the shop?

I have installed lots of TC parts over the years. They have always fit perfect and went on without issue.

I did a ton of work to a buddies 1st gen Tundra after he got a little wild at KOH and bent everything. He brought me a ton of All Pro knock off TC parts. They all fit like trash and require a ton of fitting to make work.

The off-road industry has always been full of drama. This recent run of it is nothing new. Social media helps push it out to new/more people.

I miss the days of no social media, having to meet people in person.
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Hell yeah man, I went to those ROR events but never met her until about 2005, then started working at the shop in early 2006.

Gargamel is a bit of a funny story and I learned a valuable life lesson from that truck. I had been working at the shop sweeping floors for about 6-9 months and Matt decided we were going to do a really cool build. We were going to use Gargamel's frame (88 Toyota 4x4) then put a T-100 cab on it so it wouldn't look crazy wide since the T-100 is 6.5" wider than the pickup. Well I was the new kid and gung-ho to help so we tore the old cab off and were left with the bare frame to start the build. One night Matt went home a bit early and Nicole was going to stay late so I decided to surprise matt by cutting brackets off the frame to lighten it up and grind down the left over cut off bracket. This is where the lesson comes in to play, I was a hack fabricator (still am) and didn't know there was a "right" way to cut off brackets and grind down the material correctly. So i spend about 4 hours cutting brackets off with a cutoff wheel while cutting into the frame itself with the cutoff wheel, then with a grinding stone I was gouging the shit out of the frame and though "man Matts going to be so proud of me!"
Well the next morning I couldn't wait to get to work to get an "atta boy" from Matt but to my surprise when I said "well what do you think Matt?" he said "I think you just ruined a perfectly good frame and we aren't building a race truck anymore" so to this day I am VERY anal about how brackets are cut off and sanded down with a DA sander and scotch pad so that it looks like there was never a bracket there in the first place.

After that we waited about a year then got our hands on the current shop race truck and built that into what it is today.
 
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