(On Being Your Own Man)
There are a lot of different ways to get ahead in life. Some are easy, some are harder. Sometimes the decision isn't even your own choice; you're simply dealt the hand and you play it. John Silva is an inventor, a designer, a fabricator and a Corvette customizer. Even if the name isn't familiar to you, you have seen it at least once in your life. I would like to tell you how one man has changed the random series of cards he was dealt into a five aces hand.
John Silva is now 53 years old and works out of his expansive shops in Ipswich (MA). He is currently married to Jeanne Silva and he has four children, three from the first marriage and his youngest son from his second marriage. His family is a mainstay in John's life and he is very demonstrative with them about his affection for them. This has caused some shocked looks in the somewhat reserved New England country, but that's the way it is with John. After all, if a father can't demonstrate his love for his family in front of other people, then just what's wrong with them?
But this is skipping ahead of the main story. As John tells the story, he really got started on all things automotive in school. John was dyslexic and just couldn't get the hang of the formal education process; speaking in front of a class room of kids brought on cold sweats. But he could work on physical projects. So when one public school teacher let him do his class projects on the building of a radio controlled car (well before the advent of the current electronic-style gizmos) he was saved. He could do his homework ( the electronics and body building) in class and he gave his project reports with no problem. His project was recognized as being in the forefront of technology and he was asked to speak to high school classes about it, as well.
John still retains a lot of his concern about speaking in public but he has overcome most of it and when it is a topic that he loves, the barriers slip away. He continues to give seminars on building and customizing cars to any group that will listen. It's his version of the Dale Carnegie course and it has helped him to come out of his shell.
Because of John's difficulties in the class room environment, the acquisition of all his inventing, designing and mechanical, electrical, painting, welding and metal working skills has been self-taught. As he currently stands, John has all the skills of any major automotive or industrial engineering firm employing hundreds of individual skills. John's three companies, Autotrends East, Silva Designs and Izonic Technolgoies Inc. can jointly or individually take on any challenge from custom cars to bagging machines for fertilizer. And have! His latest invention, arising out of Izonic Technolgies Inc. is a new style of industrial air cleansing system based on the electronic ionization of air ; and it is working just fine!
Fresh out of school, John first worked in an autoglass and upholstery shop for someone else. The owner cut his pay in half when he thought that John wasn't being productive enough; it seems that the full leg cast acquired as the result of a motorcylce accident was impeding his movement around the shop. The owner said that he was doing about half the work he had done before, so he should get paid half. Hmmmm.
Looking back, John says that he wasn't much phased by this. In 1964, he simply set up his own shop on Dodge Court in Danvers (MA). This time, his orientation was more to the body work. While he had started as a mechanic, he preferred the personal expression provided through body work. As crashed Corvettes came in, the owners almost invariably went to some form of custom treatment. It was only natural to follow his interests and extend that side of the business.
Subsequent moves to Franklin Street in Salem (1965) and Monseigneur O'Brian Hwy in Cambridge (MA) in 1967 matched the demand for larger (and cheaper) facilities. In the peak of the 70's, John even had a satellite shop in Cleveland (OH) to meet local demand from that area. Finally, the move to Ipswich took place in 1991. These were "boom" years in the car business and everyone benefitted.
It was during the early years that John first made the decision to take molds from some of the more popular conversions he had worked on. It was inevitable that once a completed project had rolled out the door, more people would see it and come to ask for the same thing. A mold solved a lot of duplicate labour and let him assign more of the work to his shop assistants. It also moved John closer to the concept of marketing. The first molds were a "Riviera" style front end for the mid-year Corvettes followed by a "Shark" nose, which preceded his "Maco" design.
It was around this time (1966) that John got a contract to do a 1966 Fairlane d'Italia for the show circuit. The important part of this story is not the "blue oval" aspect, but rather that the car made its debut at the Boston show in the spring of 1966. This was the same time as GM's Mako Shark hit the circuit. John was blown away. He loved it and just like everyone else he waited to see it come into production. When GM introduced a milder version in 1968, it was his cue to make his own variant, the Maco by Silva.
John Silva's "Maco" targeted the wild side that had been evident in the show car. He bought a 1968 coupe and started work. A brief letter to GM obtained permission to build the car. It was a different era (fortunately) and by 1969 the Maco car made its own debut on Joe Kaiser's AUTORAMA circuit at the Prudential Centre, in Boston.
John originally built two of the Maco cars. One of the cars was put in the Boston show and then subsequently sent around to various dealers. He had support from local dealers like Porter Chevrolet in Boston, Davy Chevrolet in Danvers and Rosenthal Chevrolet in Virginia. From the first cars which were shown, business grew. At the peak, there were orders for about 3-4 cars a month (whole cars or parts). It was usually the same story that got him into body work in the first place; someone would come in with one end of a car crashed and he would want a conversion kit, then order the rear or some other piece to match.
SIDEBAR ON PATENTS
John Silva has designed and invented many unique cars and products over the years. Some of them have been copied and sold by other groups; some court cases on these "copies" are still in process. In another example of how John has learned almost everything he now knows through trial and error, he now has a grasp on some elements of patent law. You might want to catch a glimpse of how this works.
One of John's first lessons concerns how difficult it is to keep a part (or design) proprietary once it is "at large" on the market place. This is a concept we also presented in our second issue in talking with John Seggie of ACI (SHARK Quarterly, Volume 1, Issue 2, page 31-32).
For John Silva, the Joel Rosen "Motion" cars were his first example. While Joel Rosen is now selling high performance Mustang parts and mechanicals, most of you will remember him as the guy who put together some really fast and wildly modified street cars in the early 70s. Corvette Fever recently released a retrospective on these cars ("Total Motivation, Paul Zazarine, Corvette Fever, Lakeland, FL, June 1993); in the period of the actual release, Marty Schorr also gave full coverage to Joel's marketing efforts in CAR Magazine (February 1971). But where did the body panels come from, you might ask? Well, according to John, he built the original 3-4 cars but when the two parties could not agree on a longer-term wholesale price to do the body work, paint and manufacturing, someone else decided it would be prudent to take new molds and produce the panels rather than buy them. End of deal; first lesson learned.
John's second major setback came at the hands of the Chrysler Motor Company. This one is still ongoing but, at its heart, it involves John's claim that he designed a car which Chrysler subsequently introduced as the Viper. In effect John says he sent a design to Chrysler while trying to drum up business. The response from Chrysler was a suit charging infringement on their (alleged) "trade dress" status. From John's perspective, his design, which was based on a 1982 Corvette, is so similar to the current car that (subject to proof on the timing of design) the question of where it originated would seem rather obvious. John has won a couple of battles in court to date and he has received a lot of favourable press and lots of sympathy for his case locally, but (here comes the lesson) the "trade dress" status is a complex issue and structured to favour large companies who can afford to employ a large legal office. The individual entrepreneur, simply, can never be well-enough equipped to protect him or herself on the open market.
If you're really interested, the following is the briefest of explanations on the patent issue. There are two type of general patent, one is "design" and the other is "utility". Design patent covers the look and shape of the product; utility patent covers how the product is constructed and how it operates. The coverage should be as general as possible and can be used by both companies or individuals, large or small. "Trade Dress" however favours very large companies who have the resources to pursue each and every case of alleged infringement. Trade dress status infers that some particular shape of image is associated with that company's line of products and can not be mistaken for anything else, the Coke bottle for example. Any person who has a product that is (alleged to be) confusingly similar can be sued. So that's it. The short lesson in patent law that John has learned the hard way. But he now knows how to structure partnership deals and how to protect his future designs.
For further information:
John Silva AUTO TRENDS EAST / SILVA DESIGN 36 Mitchell Rd., Ipswich, MA USA (508) 356-1337 (T) 01938 (506) 356-3380 (F)
In the next issue we explore John’s plans to revitalize the Maco design as well as some of his other projects, including space-age future vehicles, Corvettes and lead sleds!
