By Wayne Scraba
Building a car from the ground up isn’t cheap. Depending upon the build, it can get downright expensive. No news to anyone reading this, we’re sure. The truth is, we’ve done our fair amount of builds – race cars, street machines, restorations over the years, and there’s no way we could have finished any of them if we didn’t pinch pennies. Fair enough, but it seems like there are never enough pennies to pinch to make a car magically pop together. Sound familiar? What do you do? Sure you could refinance your house or get a second job, but there’s one more option. It’s a pretty good one: Hock your unneeded parts. And we’re not talking the local pawnshop or a local swap meet either. What you need to do is to figure out a way to reach a bigger market, sell the stuff and actually make some cash. Sounds easy enough, but some folks fail miserably at it. There are a number of reasons for this, and we’ll address them below as well as in the next issue:
Inventory what you have. It’s a good idea to figure out the original manufacturer part number too. This hand written copy is your initial working list. Later, once you have description, it’s a good idea to make a good itemized hard copy complete with a description.
Figure Out What You Have...
First things first: Determine what you actually have to sell. What we do is to dig through our parts pile and make a list of virtually everything we have that we don’t need. Never assume that some trivial leftover is just junk. It might really surprise you to find that cast-off with no apparent value is actually worth some money. We had one really striking example from the past: Yours truly had a partially finished 1971 Nova in the shop. I needed dollars for another project, so I sold the Nova as an unfinished roller. Long after the taillights disappeared down the road, I stumbled across the original vinyl floor covering jammed underneath my workbench (that old Nova was an almost zero option machine -- the entire floor covering was the cheapest taxi-cab format you could get, but it was positively perfect when it came to condition). I thought about it a bit and almost as a joke, I put it up for sale on that big auction site many of us love to hate. I put a reserve on it of $500, assuming it would never sell anyway. Honestly, I figured it was worth maybe a hundred bucks to the right guy. Seven days later, two car collectors with deep pockets battled it out to the tune of a $1500 final selling price. Morale of the story here was, I didn’t realize the aftermarket reproduction was ugly and didn’t fit. I should have been more educated, and it made me think of the high value parts I’ve probably tossed over the decades.
When push comes to shove, you should treat every part as a special component no matter how odd or seemingly insignificant it may be. Research the parts you have for sale and figure out what you really might have (in terms of value). Keep in mind too that if you break down some subassemblies (part them out), there’s more bucks to be made. Case-in-point: You have a set of takeoff stock wheels and tires from an old project. If the tires are somewhat useable, break them down. You’ll always get more for the wheels and tires separately. Yes, it will usually burn up more time to sell stuff separately, but it’s been our experience that you’ll turn a higher profit.
Figure out what you have. Vintage OEM parts catalogs, restoration company catalogs, speed shop catalogs and a dog-eared Hollander Interchange manual are resources we use to establish the exact identity of the pieces.
Figure Out The Price…
Once you know exactly what you have, how do you know what the price is (remember that floor covering example above – I was initially going to sell it, hoping to generate a hundred or so dollars)? First of all, be realistic with regard to what you have. You just can’t compare something like a New Old Stock grille assembly to one that’s well worn and has been subject to abuse on daily driver for 150,000 miles. With the condition out of the way, it’s a good idea to simply use a web-based search engine. Type the part description into something like Google and check the results. We regular cross-reference that search against websites such as RacingJunk.com and Hot Rod Hotline too. You can also watch online auctions. Car/marque specific websites are good places to check pricing too. In the end, the thing we can’t stress enough is that you should reasonable when evaluating the condition of your parts too.
What about leftover new hardware? If you’re like us, there’s usually a bunch of new leftovers from previous projects gathering dust under our workbench. Some were mistakes on the application. Others were the result of ordering the wrong quantity. And most often, we just found something better for the job and we didn’t use that original part or parts. Now, when it comes to new, unused pieces, no one will pay you the same price they pay at a major reseller.
Even if the part or assembly is brand spanking new and in the original packaging, you just can’t expect to get your money back. Remember, most folks can get that same item from a major reseller such as Summit Racing or Jeg’s. With that in mind, price everything (new or used) accordingly.
Web search engines are the cat’s meow when it comes to figuring out the price. But we also back it up with searches on places like RacingJunk and Hot Rod Hotline.
Back to that list we talked about earlier: Now is the time to create a legible copy. You should take the time to write down an accurate description of the part in question (fudging on the part number or condition will win you few friends or sales). Make sure you include applications (what fits what), and if at all possible include the part numbers too. Buyers are educated and they need to know what they’re buying. You can do this on MS Word or Excel. When you “work” the parts and the list, mark components as sold when they sell. That way, you’ll be on top of your “inventory” (it’s no fun “losing” a sale when parts go missing or when you forgot you sold an item previously – and it can happen if you have a lot of little items).
Next issue, we’ll look at how to market the components and how to eventually turn that junk into dollars. Sharpen your pencil!