September 2022 Update
For this month’s update I’ll start off with a quick thank you to those of you that reached out after last month’s update. I’d mentioned some personal stuff that was going on and a few people contacted me with come kind words and wonderful support. So, thank you - those messages were incredibly helpful, even if I didn’t say too much in response.
Okay, moving on… August was awesome in many ways, the main one being that I’m finally getting my shit together and feeling good about things, both personally and professionally. I’ve gotten a lot of work done on the Redpants website and I’m getting ready to dive back into making videos for my Redpants YouTube channel. I’ve got enough video for a few DIY Guides, and I’m really excited to get back to making them to help everyone out.
One thing that just popped up today, when I was getting ready to write this Monthly Update, is that the website platform I use seems to have done some kind of update in the background that broke the custom CSS I wrote to make the website easier to navigate. I’ve found a workaround that works for the bulk of what was affected, but you’ll still see some changes in a few places, like the navigation bar that’s now red, where I haven’t been able to get it sorted yet. Sorry if it’s a bit visually perturbing, it wasn’t something I did, I’m just trying to fix what Squarespace did.
Redpants Updates
One of the things I struggle with is making information as easily accessible as possible, both for information that’s been available on Redpants for several years and information I’ve just added. That’s actually the reason I started listing updates in Blog Posts (even before I started these monthly ones). But I also know that not everyone reads these, so I changed the Redpants home page a bit - I added sections for recent content additions on Redpants and recent product listing additions in the Redpants Online Store. Hopefully that helps a bit!
Depending on how soon you read this Blog Post, you might see that one of my latest content additions to the website is a Wheel Inspiration Guide. I get asked fairly often about pics for wheels on cars because people are interested in getting a set but want to have a better idea of how they’ll look on their own car. So, I created a pseudo-gallery showing a few of the wheels I’ve put on my own cars and that my customers have put on theirs. It’s far from exhaustive given the wheels I’ve supplied to customers - I’ll continue adding more as I get to them, but I also don’t like asking customers to use their cars to advertise my products. I know most of my customers would be perfectly fine with it, but… I still feel weird about it. It’s a me-thing.
Also on the Redpants home page is the Search Bar. If you’ve tried using it in the past and it didn’t work, I’ve finally figured out why! The Search Bar had a semi-obscure option that would pre-load results as you type. The idea is that as you type, it’ll populate results in the drop-down so you don’t have to go to a new page listing results. The problem was that the pre-loading was really slow, so you wouldn’t even know it was doing it. If you hit “enter” before the pre-loading actually showed anything, you’d end up at a results page with no results. It was pretty fucky to say the least. So, I finally figured out that there was that pre-loading issue and disabled it. Now, if you type something into the Search Bar, it will go to a new page with a list of results. In other words, it actually works now.
In my last update I’d mentioned that I moved the DIY Guide for my Oil Catch Can Kits over from the legacy Redpants website to this new one, but I didn’t actually add it to the DIY Guide Index. I’ve just fixed that, so it’s there now. Also, I’ve started accepting pre-orders for these - they’re really popular and can sell out quickly, so the pre-order is limited to the number I have in production. Of course, I’ll schedule another production run when the inventory count for current one starts getting low. I did say I’d open the listing for orders once stock hit my shelves, but due to demand I’ve decided to allow pre-orders.
Another big bit of news on the products front is that VelocityAP’s new clutch kits are now shipping! These are basically the same product they’ve been selling for years, but they were able to drop the cost substantially by changing a few things on the backend. Meaning, things are more streamlined for them, and the result is a massive discount for us. Great succes.
While creating the aforementioned Wheel Inspiration Guide, I realized I didn’t have product listings for BC Forged RZ053 wheels, or for BC Forged EH168 wheels. So, I added those. I didn’t originally have listings for them because they’ve been such niche models. I’d supplied a set of the RZ053 for a widebody V8 Vantage, and supplied a set of the EH168 for a C7 Corvette. Yep, that’s right, I can fit wheels to other cars as well! I tend to focus on Aston Martins, since that’s what I’m known for, but I can provide parts for far more.
There were a variety of changes and additions around the website and shop, but I think listing and explaining them is more effort than those things were to begin with, so, I think I’ll move my attention to a cocktail rather than continue on about those.
Keep Current
Don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel and turn on notifications so you know when I put out a new video.
I hate social media so I’m rarely on it. If you want to get in touch, email me or use my Contact page (they both go to the same email address). If you message me on a Redpants social media page, it should say to email me. If you try to message me on a personal page, it won’t be seen.
I notify people when I publish Monthly Updates by sending out a Newsletter. If you’re not subscribed to my Newsletter, you can do so here:
Okay, that’s it for this update. I’ll push out Blog Posts as needed in addition to my monthly ones, so make sure you check back if you want to see those.