Fire Destroys RPI Designs Headquarters

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Fire Destroys RPI Designs Headquarters

It’s time for the Corvette community to rally around one of our own as an early morning fire Saturday destroyed the RPI Designs fiberglass plant in Beloit, Ohio.

RPI offers many C5/C6/C7 Corvette parts and accessories, ranging from custom body color painted parts to exhaust systems, grills, and more and says on its website that it’s shipped over 110,000 orders to satisfied customers since 1999.

Fortunately, no one was injured in the weekend blaze, which gutted the 8,000-square-foot plant that made plastic aftermarket parts for Corvettes and Camaros. No cause has been determined, but the building was insured.

North Georgetown firefighters responded to the fire, along with six other fire departments, including Homeworth, Beloit, Sebring, Winona, Washington Township, and Damascus. They were able to bring the fire under control in 40 minutes and returned later Saturday morning to extinguish hot spots, according to North Georgetown Fire Chief Ed Reichenbach.

On the company’s Facebook page, owners Josh and Renee Greenawalt made this statement:

“We want to thank all of the volunteer fire departments who came out to our shop in the early hours of the morning to battle the fire. All of you give so freely of your time to help others while still having to work to support your families. Many of the firemen today after battling the blaze for 2+ hours had jobs that they were running late to get to. We appreciate each and everyone one of you and what you do for the community! When we get our business back up and running your kindness and generosity will not be forgotten. May God bless you all and keep you safe in the future.”

The company posted this morning that it is currently moving to a new shop and has shut down painting and carbon fiber for 5-10 days during the move. “As soon as we get back up, we’ll process your painted/carbon order ASAP,” they said. “Other parts will continue to ship as normal. Thank you for your support.”

RPI is also asking customers for help:

“Since our molds have been destroyed in the fire, we are looking for past customers who bought our parts, to send us the following pieces, so we can build new molds and make more products, including C7 Corvette ZR7 Stage1 Splitter (update, a great customer stepped up and we have one on the way!), C7 Corvette ZR7 Stage2 Splitter, C7 Corvette ZR7 Stage1 Side Skirts, C7 Corvette ZR7 Stage2 Side Skirts, C6 Corvette ZRAL Front Splitter for Standard C6, C6 Covette ZRAL Front Splitter for Z06 Corvette, C6 Corvette ZR1 Style Side Skirts for Standard C6, C6 Corvette ZR1 Style Side Skirts for Z06 Corvette, and C6 Corvette Z06/Grand Sport Front Fender Extensions/Mud Guards.

We have off site backup molds of all of our other products, but we need help getting these parts back to our shop to make more molds. We are going to give any customer $100 RPI Store credit for stepping up and letting us borrow your parts. We will re-paint them to perfect condition. We will also pick up the parts from your house via FEDEX and ship them back to your via FEDEX, no cost to you. All other orders for other parts are not going to be affected with this fire we had. These other parts will continue to ship on a normal schedule.”


Source:
MorningJournalNews.com

Related:
RPI Designs Now Offering C7 Corvette Stingray Lower Painted Bumper Covers
CORSA Performance Announces Partnership with the National Corvette Museum
Zip Corvette Offers a Powerful Line Up of C7 Headers, Exhaust Systems and Engine Accessories

 



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