Its all about pre-orders. Most ppl like to impulse buy. Its more fun, instant gratification. Welcome to the Amazon generation. If someone orders from me and i dont get it out within a few days, I get a "where my train" email. Ppl cant wait a week, let alone a year or two. So without pre-orders, someone has to buy on spec. Atlas doesnt want to guess what ppl want, and have money tied up on the shelf, hoping they guessed right. And us dealers can afford to put out 20,000 $ on one engine run and have product sitting on the shelf. And consumers....I can tell u from experience, when I ask "what do u want", the most frequent answer is "no answer", and then I'll get 25 people who want 1 each of 25 different engines. And I hear all the time.."can u make these, I'll buy one" Well I need to sell a lot more than one of anything to make it viable.
There are other factors too...company philosophy...core business...minimum return on investment, buyer habits.
And as someone at York supposedly said...."in 15 years, everyone here will be dead". So IDK where this is all going.
