cool, almost there in donations...

 

I've got paypal money from:

Matthew Gedney...........$40
Martin O'Connor ...........$30
Michael Lee .................$20
Dale Clark ....................$30
Matthew Hopkins .........$15
Neit Nieves ..................$20
Nancy Lukacik .............$10
Mark Strong.................$10
Matthew McKeever.......$15
Steve Prew..................$20
Ramy Nasr...................$40
Yuichiro Russel.............$30
Francisco J. Declet........$5
nickpapagiorgio...........$15

Mailing:

Turb0x2 .....................$40
Raceshop ...................$20


Total......................... $360

Just paypal'd $15.00. (I'll add my own name)

 

Paypal'd mine. Total should be $390

 

I've got paypal money from:

Matthew Gedney...........$40
Martin O'Connor ...........$30
Michael Lee .................$20
Dale Clark ....................$30
Matthew Hopkins .........$15
Neit Nieves ..................$20
Nancy Lukacik .............$10
Mark Strong.................$10
Matthew McKeever.......$15
Steve Prew..................$20
Ramy Nasr...................$40
Yuichiro Russel.............$30
Francisco J. Declet........$5
nickpapagiorgio............$15
Ryan Downs.................$20
Jesse Zenker................$30

Mailing:

Turb0x2 .....................$40
Raceshop ...................$20


Total......................... $410

 

I'll donate $10. Please PM me with the Paypal info.

-s-

 

MONDAY UPDATE

I just got off the phone with the account representative, michelle, after about a 30 minute conversation. One thing I learned from her is how their quote system works, and can finally say that sometimes owning an FD can make things cheaper. They take the number of FD's and get a percentage of how many there are compared to the total number of cars on the road. She said our perncentage was like .00XX%, so to her it was insanely low and thats why we were quoted the minimum amount, $500.

There are some new developments in getting this information, and the information we can get. In the email I received from her last week, she quoted me $500 for all 93,94,95 rx7's listed by state. She said today though that she mistakingly gave me that quote based on just a national snapshot, and not state by state. The good news is that since our percentage is so low, .00XX%, even listing it state by state it will mostly likely still fall in the category for the $500 minimum. So bottom line, we are still getting that info and the donations are fine where they are. (except for the three people or so that arent on the payment list )

Theres also the possibility of getting some more data while we still fall under the minimum quote category. Earlier in this thread there was mention of getting the number of FD's for each year 1993-present, so that we could see the decline of the registration numbers. I asked whether getting this info would be considered a separate data request, meaning would it cost a separate $500. She said she can probably work it into the existing quote and it might not even increase the cost at all. But she couldnt say for certain either way.

Third issue, I know that I advertised this at "current" registration data, because thats what I understood it to be. However, she said that they collect this data every quarter, and that the last quarter that they have available is October '05. I asked when the next quarters data would be available, January '06, and she said that it would be available within the next three weeks, no later. So I need to know whether you guys want to wait three weeks for januarys data or settle for octobers data.

Tomorrow she is faxing me the sales agreement which I have to sign and fax back. She knows that I'm collecting donations on this and understands that I'm leading the blind here, so she'll be typing something up tomorrow on company letterhead which should detail out the quote and what it includes. Look for that tomorrow afternoon.

It's going to include two quotes:

1) Quote for just the state by state registration data (mostly like still $500)
2) Quote for state by state registration data, along with (1993-october 2006) annual registration numbers (could still be $500)

The reason why I'm saying "most likely still $500" and "could still be $500" is because she wasnt 100% sure, and I didnt want to make it seem 100%. So look for the official quote tomorrow afternoon.

She asked me if the second data cant be combined with the first, what would we be able to go up to pricewise if she could work out a deal for us where it wouldnt cost an additional $500. I threw out a number, $750 for both as the max. I figured that was $250 more for data that everyone would also like to know equally as well.

Bottom line: We are still getting the original state by state data with the current amount of donations given/pledged. The issue we have to decide on is whether you want to wait 3 weeks for januarys data or get last octobers data which is available now. The difference in numbers probably wont be significant, but on the other hand, its only three weeks of waiting for the most current information which the RX7 community has never had anyway.

I'll be online a lot tonight so I'm up for answering everyones questions....


BTW: she actually sounded pretty intrigued about the whole FD rarity thing, and tight-knit community we have. She was looking up on google images some FD's and asking lots of quesitons about why there are so few. Her cool points took a slight hit though when she said they kinda looked like a camaro, ouch!

 

I don't see any reason to wait for the current quarter's data. I'd say run with the Oct. 2005 data and be good to go. Like you said, this is information we've NEVER had, and one quarter difference isn't gonna mean much. I think waiting the extra 3 weeks, things may change, momentum lost, etc. Let's get this done and get the data.

What exactly are the annual registration numbers? As in, how many were registered each year? I'm not sure of what use that would be.

BTW, 1993 model year FD's were on sale in 1992 - I'm sure she's aware of that, but just make sure .

Can you break down exactly what data points we will be receiving? Is it just a number by state, or is it broken down farther?

Looking forward to it! Thanks again for your efforts!

Dale

 

While it would be nice to have data for 2006, I agree with Dale's momentum comments above.

I'd be interested in the annual registration history as well, and would pay an extra $5 for that info.


However, I've changed my mind regarding Paypal. After the way they screwed with somethingawful.com's Hurricane Katrina donations, I'll just send my check by mail.

-s-

 

I see Dale and Scott's points, but I'd be for waiting the 3 weeks to get the most current info, esp. since we've seen TONS of FD's disappears recently...

~Ramy

 

Thats exactly what she said about getting octobers data since the difference would be so small compared to january. So there's no reason to really wait for january's data since we'll probably be doing this same request each year.

What you'll see in the report: It will be a spreadsheet with 3 columns...93...94...95....Then there will be 50 rows, each corresponding to a state. The numbers will represent for example how many 93's were registered in Florida as of October '05.

Annual Registration Numbers: Hopefully she'll be able to tack on this report without any additional cost. But this would be a report, not broken down by state, but rather a national number for 93's, 94's and 95's for each year since 1993. This report would be interesting to graph. You could see which years we really lost the most and whether they were 93,94, or 95's. Also you could take the slope of the line getting into 2000-2005 and make a good guess as to where we'll be from 2006 and beyond.

 

Oooh...sounds like we can extrapolate and get a nice fancy schmancy chart/line graph showing FD attrition rate in past, present, and projected in the future

~Ramy

 

And to add your point Ramy, getting the specifics worked out on everything (sales aggrement, payment, and putting the data together) would mean that we'd use up this week getting the October data. So its more like 2 weeks when you factor that in. Also, she said it would be no more than three weeks, pointing out that it could also be sooner.

 

It is not very important for me whether we wait to get the January data or use October's. If she comes back and says we need an additional $250 for the yearly totals then I see no harm in waiting so that we have more time to raise the extra money. But like I said its not important to me, I will be happy either way.

 

+1

 

This may be splitting hairs, but is it possible to get the data broken down location-wise any further? By county or city? Going back to your point of her giving us a relatively modest amount of data, might be worth asking if that could be done for the same price .

I do see the benefit for the annual registration numbers. The data does need to be from '92 to present, BTW . Dunno if there would actually be anything in '91 - I believe production did start about then (Dec. 91), but I think that was only for early models in Japan, not US-bound cars.

Dale

 

how about we just break it down by sub-division, apartment complex, and dorm?

 

Hey you're talking to the guy who wanted names and street addresses

~Ramy

 

If a finer than state breakdown is available for free, go for it. But I would not be willing to pay any more for it.

I guess it would be very mildly interesting to see how many FDs are registered in Northern vs. Southern California but I can't think of any other breakdown that I would even remotely care about. My guess would be that the distribution of registered cars per state would just follow population density, which is not useful knowledge.

 

[QUOTE=moconnor] If a finer than state breakdown is available for free, go for it. But I would not be willing to pay any more for it.
[QUOTE]

Big ditto here. It would be worth throwin' in there if they could.

Dale

 

I've got paypal money from:

Matthew Gedney...........$40
Martin O'Connor ...........$30
Michael Lee .................$20
Dale Clark ....................$30
Matthew Hopkins .........$15
Neit Nieves ..................$20
Nancy Lukacik .............$10
Mark Strong.................$10
Matthew McKeever.......$15
Steve Prew..................$20
Ramy Nasr...................$40
Yuichiro Russel.............$30
Francisco J. Declet........$5
nickpapagiorgio............$15
Ryan Downs.................$20
Jesse Zenker................$30
Richard Ellis .................$30

Mailing:

Turb0x2 .....................$40
Raceshop ...................$20


Total......................... $440

 

Once I get that data into a database it's cake for me to write a web front end to break down the data a million ways, even with cool bar graphs or pie graphs or other random charts

 

I will be in for $10

USCmatt please PM me a paypal address.

Thanks for putting this together; it’s nice to see the community doing things like this

Big thumbs up to eveyone.

 

I've got paypal money from:

Matthew Gedney...........$40
Martin O'Connor ...........$30
Michael Lee .................$20
Dale Clark ....................$30
Matthew Hopkins .........$15
Neit Nieves ..................$20
Nancy Lukacik .............$10
Mark Strong.................$10
Matthew McKeever.......$15
Steve Prew..................$20
Ramy Nasr...................$40
Yuichiro Russel.............$30
Francisco J. Declet........$5
nickpapagiorgio............$15
Ryan Downs.................$20
Jesse Zenker................$30
Richard Ellis .................$30
David Flori ...................$10
Elliot Castillo.................$20


Mailing:

Turb0x2 .....................$40
Raceshop ...................$20


Total......................... $470

 

TUESDAY UPDATE

Alright guys, just as we were doing really good with the donations, we've been thrown a curveball. In my monday update I wrote....

"She said today though that she mistakingly gave me that quote based on just a national snapshot, and not state by state. The good news is that since our percentage is so low, .00XX%, even listing it state by state it will mostly likely still fall in the category for the $500 minimum. So bottom line, we are still getting that info and the donations are fine where they are."

I've attached the proposal that she sent me today. As you can see from it we'll need an extra $250 in donations, which shouldnt be hard to do, but its just a minor setback in time. We've managed to get $470 in donations since last wedneday, so I think everyone should be confident that we can persuade some more members to contribute. I had no idea of knowing that this would be over $500 so its a surprise to me as much as it is to you guys.

As for the data since 1992, unless someone wants to sell their single turbo kit we'll have to cross that one off. From talking with her and with what she was saying, I had never thought in my mind of it being that high.

Some of you were asking about localizing the data even further than the state level. I dont have a quote on anything below the state level but this was the email she sent me today...


Michele Graham
Account Executive
AIS North America
R.L. Polk & Co


So as of now, donations are opened up to collect an additional $250, to bring the total to $750. Lets get the word out so we can make this happen!

Discuss........

 

Well, if it's $750, it's $750. C'mon guys, pony up some more cash! I might donate another round myself - check valve sales have been doing well.

I would like to find out if there's anything else we can get for the money - like drill down one level past state on location or something. Just want to make sure we get all we possibly can out of the deal .

Dale