Would my love for 80's and 90's imports make a good business?

So let me start off by saying I'm not looking to get rich, I'm not even looking for this to be a full time job. Just wanna make enough to pay for the space needed and to justify doing it.

I love 80's and 90's japanese sports cars. It makes me sad knowing every year fewer and fewer are on the road because parts are not available or hard to find.

I notice that occasionally whole cars can be found pretty cheap on craigslist, etc. My thought is to part these suckers out to keep others alive. I realize you can occasionally find these cars in junkyards but having one place where you can find a large inventory could be gold.

The cars that come to mind are rx7s, NA miatas, MR2s, starions, conquests, supras, 280zs,300zxs, etc.

good idea or waste of time? Located in midwest if thats important.

Thanks Dan

Such businesses are built on service. If you can get the parts to me as soon as possible after I order and pay for them, things will probably go well. But, if you screw around, delay, and generally treat it like a part-time job, you may not do well at all.

You realize that the amount of space needed for such an undertaking is massive? If you plan on dealing with used parts you will be dealing with the EPA as well.
Yes you can do it all unlicensed, but when you get caught up with...

Having been there, and done that, for three years with a business license and the whole she-bang...

Don't. It is more than a full-time job to run a legitimate company, customers will treat you like garbage and expect to be treated like royalty (that's broke), and if you do manage to make profits you get taxed out the wazoo on it (Feds, State, County, City...).

maybe one at a time on ebay?

NO.

The amount of time you would need to spend on the phone with customers will keep you from getting any work done.

I would think about specializing in hard to find parts. For example an alternator for a supercharged mr2 is really hard to find. They have a different sized pully than a corrolla due to the supercharger. When I needed one it took two weeks to get and had to be shipped from japan. Same deal for a crx rear quarter window.

Back when these cars were new, a friend tried to get me to go into business, doing something like this, as a sort of precursor to the whole sport compact thing. We were going to go into business in Northeastern Florida and hopefully retire before the age of 60. Well, the sport compact scene seems to have died. It doesn't look like it took off in Florida, so I tell myself that we could have lost our shirts and/or our homes.

IF, you really wanted to do this, and I agree with others here that it probably can't be done, I would start with a car or a model of a car....say the RX-7 or VW Golf and try to source (as one person here suggested) those hard to find but high wear items that folks need. Then, if it takes off...SLOWLY expand. Unfortunately, you already have a lot of competition.

Another possible area? Try buying and fixing up 1 car that you really like that could possibly be "flipped". Someone near me has started restoring (at least that is what THEY are calling it, I wouldn't) MGs, both the B and the Midget. The profits from the first car help to finance the second....and so on.

frenchy wrote: I would think about specializing in hard to find parts. For example an alternator for a supercharged mr2 is really hard to find. They have a different sized pully than a corrolla due to the supercharger. When I needed one it took two weeks to get and had to be shipped from japan. Same deal for a crx rear quarter window.

You're supposed to re-use your old pulley.

Really? This was so damn long ago it doesn't matter now. Still makes me mad that you say I could have used the old pulley.

I would agree about concentrating on a single make and/or model. I've had similar thoughts with new MINI's, which are starting to hit the point where cars can be salvaged and parted out for a profit. In theory. With maybe a secondary business of workign on the cars as well as resurrecting shells into race cars. However, I recognize the required space and start-up funding to even handle a single model (mainly R50/52/53 cars) would be considerable and are mybiggest hurdles.

A midwest location may be a concern. I am in the PHL/NYC area where MINI's are pretty common, so I wouldn't have to go far for cars or customers.

In reply to dankspeed:

A guy in my area is trying to do something like this. After talking to him, it was clear that it is a full time job that runs more than 40 hours a week.

More importantly, it's also a shrinking market. In order to be sustainable, you might have to part out more modern cars as well as domestics. In other words, what you would wind up being is a scrapyard that specialized in 80-90s Japanese cars.

integraguy wrote: Another possible area? Try buying and fixing up 1 car that you really like that could possibly be "flipped". Someone near me has started restoring (at least that is what THEY are calling it, I wouldn't) MGs, both the B and the Midget. The profits from the first car help to finance the second....and so on.

And if you tape that cleverly, you might be able to have your own series on HD Theater- a US version of Wheeler Dealer.

I was talking with someone about starting a Supra dedicated business. The MkIII especially, doesn't get much support, but there are a lot of them out there being modified.

The idea kinda fizzled, but I think we could make it work.

The biggest problem with MkIII tuners is that the cars are only worth 4-5 grand, and a simple LSD from OS-Gikken is almost a thousand dollars.

You could try getting your feet wet by doing this part time - checking local U-pull junkyards and selling the parts on eBay. I bought a climate control setup for my wife's '95 Oldsmobile Achieva (talk about a car that doesn't have an enthusiast following at all) from an enterprise that parts out cars on eBay, so it does at least seem that there's some level of money to be made in such a business.

I have a buddy in St. Louis that does this and has been doing it for at least 4 years now. He does well, but he's ALWAYS, and i mean ALWAYS working.

Thanks guys. Like the idea of concentrating on one model and doing one car at a time. My thoughts were to buy a car dismantle it , inventory the parts, then scrape shell. If i'm just holding onto the parts and not the shell then less space is needed.

There was a shop locally that specialized in Hondas and DSM's, starting out on the lowrider/body kit/stereo end of things, but then evolving into performance work. When that market shrank they also took on Mustangs and Camaros.

The shop had a great reputation among owners of all the makes they worked on, and the owner was very well respected and active in the local scene. Their shop even continued to thrive as the economy slowed down. Then the owner and his wife were arrested at the Mexican border with a trunk full of coke. Oops!!

dankspeed wrote: Thanks guys. Like the idea of concentrating on one model and doing one car at a time. My thoughts were to buy a car dismantle it , inventory the parts, then scrape shell. If i'm just holding onto the parts and not the shell then less space is needed.

Depending on the shell's condition, you might want to keep every straight panel that unbolts and saw off any sections that commonly rust, for use as patch panels.

MadScientistMatt wrote:

dankspeed wrote: Thanks guys. Like the idea of concentrating on one model and doing one car at a time. My thoughts were to buy a car dismantle it , inventory the parts, then scrape shell. If i'm just holding onto the parts and not the shell then less space is needed.

Depending on the shell's condition, you might want to keep every straight panel that unbolts and saw off any sections that commonly rust, for use as patch panels.

Thats was actually m plan just didn't post it.

alfadriver wrote:

integraguy wrote: Another possible area? Try buying and fixing up 1 car that you really like that could possibly be "flipped". Someone near me has started restoring (at least that is what THEY are calling it, I wouldn't) MGs, both the B and the Midget. The profits from the first car help to finance the second....and so on.

And if you tape that cleverly, you might be able to have your own series on HD Theater- a US version of Wheeler Dealer.

which would be cool

I bought my first bmw 2002 from a guy with probably 100 Saab 900 and 99 hulks laying around. Looked like he bought insurance write offs, then stripped mechanicals. He just pulled body parts/interiors as needed. He also would take the best bits rebuild a few decent cars and sell. So I think specializing in a model or two would be the way to go. FWIW, he wasn't a wealthy guy - but he is the master of his time and he hangs out in a shop full of cars instead of a cubicle.