GRH

Some of you will remember that Steve sold the Velocity Brand to Regal Boats in the late 80's....he was disappointed in the quality of build Regal was putting the Velocity name on & left Regal to start Thoroughbred Boats...eventually...mid to late 90's Steve re-acquired the Velocity name & built them "his way" until this most recent sale... Steve is a "Performance Boat Guy" .... if you own one of his boats rest assured it was built right.... these new owners are fisherman... not performance boaters....

low_psi

Things don't look good on their FB page either. Here is a little conversation I copied from their page:





Polly Shaffer Podgorski
June 22 at 8:29pm.

So so interesting. You can not rate the company anymore since I posted this comment below and gave them a one star rating. Imagine that! I wonder how long it will take them to take this honest post down again. Now they want to fix boats. I guess they have plenty of experience. Patched stringers on new boats with added piece of stringer on top, screwed down and fiber glassed over. UNACCEPTABLE. My wife and I witness this in front of the former Velocity owner. Cancelled our order. They still owe me one thousand dollars after 6 months. If you are getting a boat built go to the factory and check that things have been corrected. However, would you still want to buy from someone who would keep a portion of your deposit money?
1Like · Comment..

Velocity Powerboats Mr. & Mrs. Podgorski – While comments are always welcome we are unable to share the details of your agreement. We are committed to our customers and apologize if we missed a chance to be of better service to you.
Like · Reply · June 22 at 9:46pm
..

Polly Shaffer Podgorski Simple. If this truly were the case then return my 1000.00 dollars and all will be square. We will not bill you for our wasted time nor should you bill us for yours particularly since you were not being truly honest with us or utimately some of your customers. My agreement was with Scott and he knows what it was, it was not with Brad but that is another story. Nice business.

Velocity Tom

I guess they ran Kenny off to. They have some new guy there that's a real unique individual.

Ing

I'm visiting Florida in two weeks and Velocity WAS one of several builders I'm looking at. I visited them back in March when me, Kenny, Steve and Scott talked about building an outboard powered VR1 but after hearing this bad news I can say without Steve supervising the build his way..., No deal. Period.

dalo int

The 1981 30' Velocity that BUP mentioned that Steve told him about is mine. Had it moved from the factory a few months ago as Steve wasn't around the factory as often and with the work going on they wanted to start charging me storage fee in an effort I guess to get me to move it anyway. Still have missing parts which they removed from it to start the restoration process. By the sound of things, customer service then versus now is like night and day.

ziemer

Joel, Steve actually has an '81 also that he bought recently and is in the process of restoring. It came out of LI, NY and he molded up a new hull to go under it. Steve posted a pic about a week ago on his Facebook. Hope yours is coming along now also.

Just sad to hear about the issues at the factory. Mine was going to be there for my rebuild too, but after hearing the stories, it went direct with Kenny.

Padraig

Anyone know why the website is down????? Maybe Steve still owns it?

Looks like Kenny at LTB is going to be busy. People are losing trust in the factory.

Padraig

[email protected]

It's back up.

Gordo

In 1997 I was traveling around the nation talking to a number of boat builders about building a Factory 1 race boat. I don't remember the name of the gentleman at Velocity I'd had conversations with, but we went to the race in Biloxi to meet him and Steve Stepp in person and discuss details. This guy walks me over to Mr Stepp, introduces me and tells him I am going racing and looking at building a new Velocity. Steve says "Hi" and walks away with zero interest.
The rest is history;

BTW We've never been beat by a Velocity

(at least, not by one that passed inspection )

raceboat rus

I would not want steve around either , not if I was driving the company that he built into the ground. Steve is a very strong individual with strong opinions with no fear of expressing such. He takes the lead with his desigtions . Right wrong or what ever . He may have been correct more often than not. as we saw Velocity prosper in it formative years . The Economic crash sort of put the brake on that for everyone. But now that the economy has stabilized some companies are on a strong rebound with smart management and leadership . Steve may have been a bit old fashion with a sell one build one and work hard attitude , but it worked .
When you sat in steves office there was no wishy washy conversation going on just strait forward ' THIS IS THE WAY I SEE IT" ideals and actions. Let us hope that velocity can take a stepp back and recharge the velocity ideal .