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History
After purchasing his first Merkur XR4ti, in June of 1996, Dave Compton joined the International Merkur Owner's Network, and it's mailing list, run by Roland Zuk That's a fabulous resource and one of the nicest places to spend time on the net.
After purchasing a Mustang SVO in January 1997 Dave wanted to correspond online with other SVO owners. This led him to create the SVO and Turbo Coupe mailing lists. The whole history of the lists, and information on joining can be found by clicking on the hyperlink. And hopefully, one day, the list archives :)
Dave was researching cams for 2.3 turbo engines and corresponded with lots of people. Building on others opinions, a consensus came out that the Engle 55 cam was the one to try. Dave put together a group buy and contacted Engle. A sample was sent to Dave and he tested it with a G-Tech in his personal SVO. The results were favorable, and the group buy was on. Click here to see a picture of "shipping day". After a few months, Dave struck a deal with Chris Thomason to put one in his car, and with the help of a local dyno operator, to dyno test the Engle 55 cam. The entire story is here. These were the first published dyno results of a camshaft in a turbo car on the WWW. And excep for a long ago magazine article from JBA, anywhere!
After a few months of helping others out with messages about the troubles they were experiencing with their cars, Dave saw a common thread in almost all of the messages regarding Ford Turbo charged cars. "Namely, what part do I need and where can I get it?"
Since often the same parts are needed, regardless of the condition of your particular SVO, Merkur or Turbo Coupe, he had already researched and developed sources of parts, at fair prices, to support his own cars. After several people would post about needing the same part, Dave recognized the need, and posted that he could offer them the parts they needed, at a fair price. This accelerated pretty quickly, and Turbo Tek Toys was launched with our WWW presence in July,1997. This predates ALL other 2.3 Turbo internet commerce sites.
We are officially incorporated, as Turbo Tek Toys Inc, a Virginia corporation.
The original URL was not multihomed off of the server and was; http://www.smartworx.com/TurboTekToys In October 1998, we registered the domain name with Network Solutions. So as soon as I can get the web server rebuilt, the URL will be http://www.TurboTekToys.com
Soon, Dave found himself overrun with parts orders, and the time it took running around to ship them. Dave and his partner Rob had started another company, previously, SmartWorx Solutions, http:///www.smartworx.com, that took off in April 98. This cut available time for TTT, and Dave decided to stop operations in April 1998.
After many requests for parts, and re-thinking his resources, Dave decided to re-open TTT. You can read the original "goodbye" letter here. The re-opening was done with not much fanfare, just a few announcements on the relevant mailing lists, and a banner on the home page, in October 1998. We've been warmly "welcomed back" and I thank you for that.
During the summer of 1998, Dave built the infamous Turbo Ranger. If you are a member of some of the mailing lists, you understand the infamous part. :) The Ranger debuted in public at the Madison NJ Merkur get together, hosted by Phil Dorsey. Even in an unfinished state, but running hard enough to stir up LOTS of interest and questions. That experience led to new products for TTT, including the Turbo Ranger kit and the Stroker kit. TTT was first to market with a stroker kit using Ford's 2.5 liter crankshaft. It is also the least cost stroker kit available.
Hope you've enjoyed reading about how we got to where we are today, and it's given you a new perspective on what we can offer you.
Dave