(Left to right) Matt Chambers, George Barber & Governor Riley of Alabama.
"But J.T. would not go to Pittsburgh, even in the short term, and that was a major factor for us, since he would not move to the North Shore, either. He'd already told several people that New Orleans was never going to be the same, he couldn't believe the looting, and he never wanted to go back there again. He thought that we should move to Shreveport, which is where he's from, but that was not an appropriate area for Confederate to move to; there's no buoyancy like there is here in Birmingham, which J.T. also declined to move to. In the end he decided to remain in New Orleans, in the French Quarter where he lives, once it became apparent that this had survived more or less unscathed. But it meant we had a parting of the ways, and his assistant Ed took over responsibility for sending Confederate in a new direction in terms of product, being already familiar with our design-driven ethos.
"We had to get on track with the inventory and see what it would take to start production again - though it was already evident the North Shore was not an option. The place would take months to come back to normal, buildings had been marked up 50 percent to rent or buy, and availability was very restricted, anyway - it's mainly a residential area. It was around six weeks before we could get into the city, when we found out what had happened to the factory. We drove into New Orleans, parked outside, opened the door, and the lights were on and the air-conditioning was blowing - it was surreal! But the shop was totaled, even though the flooding was relatively light. What had happened was due to Katrina's wind force; the whole of one wall had collapsed when the wind blew it in, and that, of course, brought the roof down on the contents. When I looked at it, my first thought was that we're not going to get anything out of here; it looked like a coal mine in there. But some of the guys convinced me it was possible to get some of the frames and other inventory out, and they did by lifting part of the roof up and extracting what lay beneath. This means a Confederate frame is strong enough to have a roof fall on it, and still survive! We lost some paper on the business side, computers and files and stuff, but our hard drives were intact. We qualified for disaster relief, but the application for the loan is still out, more than a year later. We had some insurance, but it was only $150,000, and anyway the real loss to the company was the business interruption; that's what was killing us. I knew we would have an absent cash flow until January at the earliest, which was doubly frustrating because we has so many orders to fulfill for the Wraith and Hellcat - more than a year's production was already under deposit. That's why I'd signed a lease on a much bigger factory, which we were planning to start moving to as soon as I'd returned from the Middle East.
Motorcycle company to the stars: Tom Cruise tests the Confederate Hellcat in front of his adoring fans.
"Confederate's purpose for being is to create, perpetuate and lead a new American vehicle design initiative, and to design and craft the best motorcycles possible. In terms of where we were going to relocate to, these were the things that were driving me to make my decision, and to derive a positive benefit from this Act of God. Birmingham was very high on my list, which is why George Barber was my last call - I'd decided I would make no firm deal anywhere else until I'd talked to him, but I wanted to be armed and dangerous if he started quizzing me, to be in the position that if he was interested in Confederate relocating to Birmingham, I could demonstrate there were other places which also had an interest in bringing us there. But it didn't come to that.
"I feel that George Barber will be historically viewed as one of the greatest motorcycle identities of the present day in North America. I've known him since 1994, and what he has done with his magnificent display of motorcycles is not only to provide a unique window on the evolution of the motorcycle, but also to create an environment where a non-motorcycle person would come out of there and say, `I'm going to be careful when I see motorcycles on the street now.' I had been there several times, and each time admired even more what'd he had created and was expanding on.
New generation motorcycle: the Renovatio
"So I called Mr. Barber, and immediately started getting calls and e-mails from what is essentially his lieutenancy. We met in the Museum auditorium, and they made an extremely professional presentation to me that was very aggressive in seeking to attract Confederate to Birmingham. Classy and courteous, but hard-headed and businesslike, it was George Barber all the way. And thus began what I would call a perfect courtship, culminating in a press conference where we made our commitment, which made the front page of the Birmingham newspaper under the headline `Motorcycle Company to the stars chooses Birmingham.' Mr. Barber has given us the use of one of his buildings in downtown Birmingham to restart manufacture, where we will likely be for two years, while we build a new factory out at the track, adjacent to the museum. George already has the legislative stuff done on that; there are no governmental problems and the green light is on. We're going to start with a 25,000-square-foot facility in a state-of-the-art building in its own right, with the possibility of future expansion, as necessary.
"But the crucial reason we want to be here in Birmingham, with Barber, is a part of reasserting American design excellence. We're exposed to every important motorcycle design that I'm aware of, to study and learn from its design and craftsmanship. And, secondly, we have access to a fantastic array of suppliers and component furnishers in this region, thanks to Alabama's position as the 21st century Detroit. And because of this location; because of Mr. Barber's support in providing us with facilities to get restarted in Birmingham, in allowing Confederate to be a component in the new high-tech automotive center of excellence he's establishing at the track, and to have access to his collection; because of the financial resources my honorable investor has insisted in maintaining on the basis of a handshake; and because of the great vision and hard work our team is devoting to re-establishing Confederate as the finest American company building small-batch motorcycle products, I feel we're stronger now than we were before Katrina, with a bright future based on a firm platform. But we've been to hell and high water getting here. Please God the City of New Orleans comes out of it as well as I believe Confederate Motorcycles has done." -MC