[Classic Heartbeat]

First off Goodmark is not a manufacturer they are an importer. They buy the parts from over seas and some of their gas tanks are made in the USA. Again purchased from a manufacturer. I do know that they do either own the tooling on some of their cowl hoods or if not they own the rights to it. There are 5 Taiwanese companys stamping out sheet metal and repair panels for trucks of many different year groops. You have good and bad parts from all of the different manufacturers, but I have found that Triplus is the best. Now Key Parts use to be Fit Rite untill I think that Triplus bought them out to have an outlet in this country. (Now that is speculation on my part, but I do know they use to be Fit Rite) Goodmark buys a lot of Triplus parts, but do not buy exclusivly from them. They use to buy all the 67-72 Chevy and GMC fenders from another Taiwan company called Gordon (because they were cheaper), untill the quality got so bad that the returns made it no longer economicly feasible. Then they went to Triplus on the fenders. They also have Triplus floor sections, rockers, floor supports, and the list goes on, but again not everything. The key to getting good quality parts is to make sure that you are buying "GM Restoration Parts" or "CAPA" certified parts. Anything else is colision quality and is for experienced body men, that know how to work metal and not just hang fenders. "GM Restoration" and CAPA certified certainly doesn't mean perfect, it just means that they are about the best that you will find. After all "Genuine GM" parts were not perfect either and in a lot of ways on some parts are even inferior to the Taiwan parts. I will also clue you in as to GMs thinking when they were building trucks back then.... They were trucks! They were more concerned about function than that perfect fit. As long as it did the job as it was supposed to and they all looked the same, they were fine by GM. (Body line tollerance + or - 1/4") Another thing that you need to keep in mind is the older the truck the more the parts were made to fit in the factory. So the older the truck that you are restoring the harder it will be to make the parts fit, but that was the way it was in the GM factory also. You are just repeating the process.
We that are now restoring trucks are the ones that have demanded better body lines and perfect fits even though they were not that way from the factory. So just keep that in mind when you hang the next part you buy on your project, then maybe you won't get as frustrated while doing what you love to do. WES www.ClassicHeartbeat.com