There is an art to finding good classic auto parts. You either have to have the right connections or you have to be willing to trudge through miles of hot, dusty flea markets and swap meets.
Depending on what kind of car you have, getting qualityparts can be a headache. If you are restoring one of the Camaros or Mustangs with huge production numbers, then chances are that there is a catalog dedicated solely to the parts for your make and model. If you are restoring an extremely rare, early model car like a Packard or a Pierce Arrow, then you have to know where to look and who to talk to in order to get the right parts.
There are several big name websites where you can find many of the classic auto parts that you need. Hemmings Motor News, one of the most reliable and trusted name in classic car literature, is now on the Web at Hemmingsmotornews.com. On Hemmings’ website all you have to do is type in the part you want and cross your fingers. If Hemmings does not have the part you are looking for, chances are, Classiccartraderonline.com will. Classiccartraderonline.com has a huge selection of classic auto parts for sale as well as over 70,000 classic cars.
Magazines and catalogs are another good way to find the elusive classic car parts that you are looking for. Every month, Hemmings Motor News comes out with a new issue the size of a Detroit phone book. About half of the space in Hemmings’ catalog/magazine is devoted to news affecting the classic car hobby and classic cars for sale. The other half of the catalog is devoted to classic parts.
While many of the parts found in Hemmings are likely to be swap meet parts and leftovers from previous restorations, catalogs such as Kanter Auto Product’s offers new parts for classic cars that are reproduced to the original specifications of the manufacturer. There are many publications like Kanter’s that are dedicated to a specific make or model. There are auto part catalogs specifically for Mopars, GM’s and Fords, as well as for Model T’s, Camaros and Mustangs.
There are several different types of classic auto parts that are available for most cars. People with rare cars or with limited funds usually have to resort to old parts found at swap meets, flea markets or junkyards. The problem with most old parts is that they have to be reconditioned before they can be used on a restored vehicle.
If a classic car collector is lucky he or she might find a stash of new-old-stock parts. New-old-stock parts are the parts that are left over from all the garages that never used them when the classic cars of today were still daily drivers.
One of the best ways to get parts for a car that is being restored is to acquire a parts car. When you are driving down a back road in the country and you see a rusted out car suspended on cinderblocks with most of its parts missing, it is probably a parts car. Parts cars are the rusted out hunks of junk that have no hope of ever being restored, so they donate their parts to the restoration of a nicer, more valuable car.
Although it is nice to be cruising down the road in a perfectly restored classic car that has every head turning your way, the restoration process and the hunt for the right parts can be the most rewarding part of the classic car hobby.
By Alex Turman