ABC Dash Pads - Are they the same as Year One?

[CudaA39]

I decided to go through ABC Mopars for my dash after hearing all the positive reviews.  When I opened the box, raised letters in the vin tag area read "YEAR ONE".  Considering the times we live in and how production on most things in this hobby are being limited, anyone know if ABC units are normally the same products from Year One, or was this a fill in because of inventory issues?

[RacerX]

I decided to go through ABC Mopars for my dash after hearing all the positive reviews.  When I opened the box, raised letters in the vin tag area read "YEAR ONE".  Considering the times we live in and how production on most things in this hobby are being limited, anyone know if ABC units are normally the same products from Year One, or was this a fill in because of inventory issues?

I hope it is just an emergency "fill in" for you...     I am likely to order three pads from ABC and if I open
the box and see "Year One" I'm not going to be happy.   

I talked to the guy on the phone today and he said it will be late March/early April before he can get
more made, whatever that does mean.   He made no indication that he was sourcing pads from other
places to meet demand.    Based on the recommendations on this site and others I was expecting that
he has some involvement in the production.   

I suppose the "devil's advocate" speculation may be the same production facility that Year One uses
also supplies pads to ABC.   But then why have "Year One" on the pads...

Why is the market for dash pads so murky and inconsistent?

[CudaA39]

I decided to go through ABC Mopars for my dash after hearing all the positive reviews.  When I opened the box, raised letters in the vin tag area read "YEAR ONE".  Considering the times we live in and how production on most things in this hobby are being limited, anyone know if ABC units are normally the same products from Year One, or was this a fill in because of inventory issues?

I hope it is just an emergency "fill in" for you...     I am likely to order three pads from ABC and if I open
the box and see "Year One" I'm not going to be happy.   

I talked to the guy on the phone today and he said it will be late March/early April before he can get
more made, whatever that does mean.   He made no indication that he was sourcing pads from other
places to meet demand.    Based on the recommendations on this site and others I was expecting that
he has some involvement in the production.   

I suppose the "devil's advocate" speculation may be the same production facility that Year One uses
also supplies pads to ABC.   But then why have "Year One" on the pads...

Why is the market for dash pads so murky and inconsistent?

Agreed.  I avoided a big box retailer like Year One because of the negative reviews I saw.  I'm waiting patiently to hear back from Bob before I make my next decision.  At the very least, I could have saved $91 because Year One ships free.

[mccannix]

More importantly...how does the pad look.
Interesting in that it has Year One in the vin tag area.
As some old timers on here may remember 20+ years ago Year One did a run of 71-74 style E-body pads all with Year One etched in the vin area.
They had a steel core backing and were about the closest to original I have ever seen, grain wise, fit and finish.
I dont know the reasoning, but they stopped production after about a year.
These pads were superior to anything done by Ultimate Rides or whatever flavor of the month name they go by these days.
Perhaps Y.O. is involved with ABC and if they resurrected their pad again from their old tooling that would be great for the hobby.

[anlauto]

I agree, who cares if it says YearOne under the VIN, as long as the pad looks good. 

I have a new pad on the way here right now from Dash Pad Pros....based out of....you guessed it....El Paso Texas...

I don't think ABC Moparts does them in house anyways, didn't we find that out in another thread somewhere ?

[Skdmark]

More importantly...how does the pad look.
Interesting in that it has Year One in the vin tag area.
As some old timers on here may remember 20+ years ago Year One did a run of 71-74 style E-body pads all with Year One etched in the vin area.
They had a steel core backing and were about the closest to original I have ever seen, grain wise, fit and finish.
I dont know the reasoning, but they stopped production after about a year.
These pads were superior to anything done by Ultimate Rides or whatever flavor of the month name they go by these days.
Perhaps Y.O. is involved with ABC and if they resurrected their pad again from their old tooling that would be great for the hobby.

The pad in my 71 Challenger was purchased 30 years ago from Year One. It had the Year One stamping under the VIN pad. It bolted right in without any trimming or fitting and still looks OEM and new to this day.

[RacerX]

The quality of Year One dash pads isn't the point here...   if they are that nice that is great, but nobody
ever has said "yea buy pad from Year one!" when asked for recommendations.

The real issue is if ABC is just reselling Year One pads we may as well buy from Year One because it is
cheaper and they tend to have shipping deals.

We consider ABC over the others because of recommendations of others.   Seems those recommendations
mean nothing and the dash pad market is a hopeless mess.

How many people/companies actually MAKE the pads?   It can't be that many...    Presumably it is one or
two operations doing it in the background and all of the "players" are just reselling that product.

[anlauto]

How many people/companies actually MAKE the pads?   It can't be that many...    Presumably it is one or
two operations doing it in the background and all of the "players" are just reselling that product.

This is pretty obvious when it comes to most reproduction parts, There's likely maybe one or two companies making new pads ( I'm not counting Just Dashes which restores your cracked pad)... These companies likely make pads for YearOne, ABC Moparts, Dash Pad Pros, Ultimate Rides, etc..etc...

[RacerX]

How many people/companies actually MAKE the pads?   It can't be that many...    Presumably it is one or
two operations doing it in the background and all of the "players" are just reselling that product.

This is pretty obvious when it comes to most reproduction parts, There's likely maybe one or two companies making new pads ( I'm not counting Just Dashes which restores your cracked pad)... These companies likely make pads for YearOne, ABC Moparts, Dash Pad Pros, Ultimate Rides, etc..etc...

It is pretty obvious with most parts, yes.   However the dash pad area seems to be very murky and
purposely obscured.   A handful of small players that purport to have quality products are in reality
just reselling someone else's product.   Nobody really seems to know any details about who makes
them and who really adds value to the process.   Most of them have severe communication problems
and I really don't like having to chase someone down to give them a couple grand$$.

It seems the way to go forward is to just buy from Year One.   There is free shipping and the size of
their operation gives more confidence that you have some recourse if there is a problem with the
order or the pad is not up to standards.

[Jay Bee]

The real issue is if ABC is just reselling Year One pads we may as well buy from Year One because it is
cheaper and they tend to have shipping deals.

We consider ABC over the others because of recommendations of others.   Seems those recommendations
mean nothing and the dash pad market is a hopeless mess.

Exactly, well put. It'd be nice to hear from other ABC pad buyers as to whether they had the Year One logo too.

[Yeya93]

Sorry, my phone was saying it wasn't sending, and i kept pressing send. Lol didn't mean to do the repetitive sending.

Sent from my GM1915 using Tapatalk

[CudaMoparRay]

No year one logo here. Mine came in around December 2020 time and i bought from abcmoparts. Now i know abcmoparts doesn't make ebody dashes in-house. They resell from a place in el paso, TX. That's where my shipping logo shipped from. I forgot the name of the company though.

Sent from my GM1915 using Tapatalk

You have a more rare 3 speaker one, would that have anything to do with it?

[Yeya93]

@CudaMoparRay nah i don't think so. I bought this pad from a guy and sent it to get restored. It wasn't a 70 pad.

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[antonellomopar]

I placed an order from Year One for a 71 one speaker dash yesterday. It will 6 weeks before it gets shipped. But the instructions for sending the core back said to ship to Al Knock, Canutillo TX. Guess they are the makers for their dashes. Anybody knows them?

[Marty]

Al Knoch.

They are the #1 choice of interiors in the Corvette restoration business. High quality and period correct. If they're making your dash pad, it should be one nice part.