Al Amatuzio "Life Story" DVD

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Pablo

Pablo

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I actually took the time to watch the Al Amatuzio "Life Story" DVD. To be honest I went into this totally skeptical, being sick of the "rah-rah" Al pep rally mentality. For the first 30 minutes I was not let down....Al had a tough upbringing in Duluth, not at all unlike my Italian father's childhood in Cincinnati, but mostly boring stuff. It seemed to drag on until about minute 45. The video really detailed his ANG service - I never knew most of that stuff he did. Finally he finished his years of service as a Lt. Colonel with lots of honors and awards. Finally Al is out and wants to chase his idea. Synthetic oil in everyday driver's cars. The video gets interesting at this point. He was the first. He beat Mobil1 (there is a retired Mobil1 guy on the DVD), and yes he beat the Germans. He is not claiming to have invented synthetic oil - just innovated it for passenger cars and trucks. One problem? No stores will put it on the shelves. Just too expensive - imagine $6 qt oil in 1972! The DVD does a great historical job of describing how he nearly went bankrupt, got sick, got stuck....and it details what brought him to MLM and Shirley Green. The details of what they did to improve on the MLM model of the time are not given, but it is clearly stated for the haters out there. Really if it wasn't for these rules (such as no forced minimum stock buys) I would not be a dealer today. Al was sued by Pennzoil. We have all read the details of that. But he was also sued by Amway. He won both cases, but the Amway case was nasty. Amway wanted to shut him down for his choice of logo colors and company name. I love the part when Unser now freely admits to running his Indy winning cars on Amsoil - brought to the track in Valvoline (or other sponsor at the time) jugs!!! They do touch on the racing world, buster. The video is very light on technical details, but I guess that wasn't the point (bummer). The main selling point early on was low temp starts without a pan heater and built up to long OCI's. It's humorous when they note all the "new" synthetic oils on the market now. I wish I had a way of posting the video free for all with fast connections to download. It's a good watch if you are interested in lubes at all.
 
quote:
Just too expensive - imagine $6 qt oil in 1972!
Not really much more than that now. Sounds like an interesting DVD. Sort of like a History Channel Biography.
 
Some of the talking heads got a bit repetitive. The retired Amsoil R&D guy seemed a bit goofy. Says a lot. The retired M1 guy spilled some stuff....would have loved more details! But it kept my interest.
 
I have a lot of respect for the man after watching the DVD. Nay sayers can spout off about the MLM nature of the business, but in the end it is what it is, and I'm glad for it. I have et a lot of good people and am looking forward to many years of being an AMSOIL dealer.
 
quote:
Originally posted by michaelc80:
quote:
Just too expensive - imagine $6 qt oil in 1972!
Not really much more than that now.
$6 in 1972 would probably equal $20 today!
 
quote:
Originally posted by DodgeBoy:
quote:
Originally posted by michaelc80:
quote:
Just too expensive - imagine $6 qt oil in 1972!
Not really much more than that now.
$6 in 1972 would probably equal $20 today!
In 2005, $6.00 from 1972 was worth: $28.03 using the Consumer Price Index
 
Cripes - I wonder how much he was paying for the ester basestocks back then. Low volume purchased....for a fairly exotic commodity or more likely he just used his connections in jet maintenance and started with jet engine oil as a base.
 
I have a lot of respect for Amsoil and Al, even though I take jabs at them at times. Pablo, I think they were more influential in racing way back when, but not so much now on the pro circles. But that is not important anyway. I think Amsoil continues to improve as the Ea filters have shown. I give the guy and company a lot of credit for going against the "norm". So what did the retired Mobil guy say? BTW, Hatco first developed the first Amsoil 10w-40 ester based oil.
 
I'm talking real early - I don't think Hatco came around until he went for API, they provided the additive package. Mobil guy seemed a bit geezer like, but he said a few comments about how Amsoil drove Mobil to come out with M1, etc
 
Interesting!! [Smile] And the DVD is listed or available on the website for just dealers or consumers? Considering 6.00 translates into $28.03 then would 3.00 translate into $14.01? If so, then that is the price we would pay for each gallon of gas based on price index of what we are paying now around here.. around $3.00 / gal. Or am I thinking backwards?
 
Actually it's the inverse. $3 gas today would be like 0.64$ in 1972. Al, true to form is trying to sell the DVD for $10. That's why I'm trying to get freebies for you guys. Mine showed up because I'm such a spectacular dealer. [Smile] Not.
 
I took this picture when my Daughter and I were back in Nebraska in the early part of June. Vacationing around old stomping grounds. This was at our neighbors back near Crawford, Nebr. Notice that it only reads 39.9 c per gallon! Our neighbor had 2 gas pumps on his farm, one was this one and the other one is red and says "American Standard" I belive gas was around 39.9/gal back in the early 70's in western Nebraska. I worked at a Conoco station in high school and my senior year in 1971 it was 36.9/ gal. -
 
quote:
Originally posted by Pablo: I wish I had a way of posting the video free for all with fast connections to download. It's a good watch if you are interested in lubes at all.
If the video is licensed for widespread free dissemination, you could always put it on Bittorrent, and then post the torrent link here. That would facilitate many individuals downloading it, in its full quality, without using up your connections. Where would I find details of the DVD online?
 
I'm sure if you check the video is copyrighted. Any picture you take is copyrighted the instant you take the picture. The above gas pump is copyrighted as well. Putting something that someone is selling on a site for free distrubution is a sure way to get sued. Look at songs on Napster. They have really cracked down on copying copyrighted material. Just provide a link to the website that sells it. I'm sure that Boistheoilguy.com doesn't want to be a party to posting a link to something illegal.
 
Yes it's copyrighted. You guys make too much sense. I was thinking along the lines of a gift.....at Al's expense [Smile] Honestly I can't find it on the Amsoil website.
 
I remember over 25 years ago that Amsoil sponsored an Indy 500 car but it did not finish the race because the car crashed into the wall. Had the naysayers known that Amsoil actually won the Indy 500 Amsoil would have commanded a lot more respect.
 
Lefty Ward was the guy from Hatco that worked with Al (and others) developing the original formulations. He worked in AMSOIL several times for a couple of years each time. Now he's retired, but still shows up at major functions. Interesting to talk to him about the early days.
 
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