The seller of this huge collection of 1955-1957 Chevrolet parts and cars claims that they have over a million dollars worth of stuff! There’s a lot of parts, a couple of cars, and an insane amount of trim. Moving it all would be a challenge, but you’d have an instant parts business! There’s a big trailer included in the sale so that would help a little. It would be a huge undertaking, but the thought of owning my own Tri-Five business is tempting…
Here’s some spare doors and fenders. These would be hard to sell online because of the shipping cost, but I’m sure there’s some money to be made here.
The trim is probably where the value lies here. The seller claims there are over 20,000 stainless bits! You will just want to make sure you keep everything organized when moving because it would be a huge pain to organize all this stuff again.
More boxes of parts. This would be a lot of fun and a lot of work. I’ve dreamed of owning a business like this for a while, but I’m afraid that the $225k investment would probably take a while to recoup. Then again, you could probably sell a few of the included cars and get close to that amount. Right? Everything is located in Nokesville, Virginia and more information can be found here on Hemmings if you’re interested.
It would take the rest of my life just to see everything let alone know what’s there.
Love the Monte Carlo fender….
An existing inventory probably exists.
Wow! It would take a long time to go through all of the inventory, then to pack, ship it all? Then unpack it? Imagine going through thier lifetime of work, the time they spent collecting all the parts and cars? once in a lifetime.
My brother has a 57 Chevy nomad and a 57 Chevy 2 door hardtop. He might be interested.
I’m kinda lazy
I say move to nokesville
And just stay
Probably best for someone that knows tri 5s.
Oh yeah need to check Zillow
That would make the most sense.
Good call re the Monte fender!
It’s for a 1971 M/C to be exact. “What’s that doing in there”? LOL I’m sure you’d probably run across other oddities too.
I wonder how he could amass such a huge inventory.
It’s really not that hard to amass such a collection, it just takes time. He probably starting buying the cars back in the 70s when they were easily found and were not worth too much. You start out buying a car to fix up and then you get a parts car to help and then another parts car and then another. Before you know it 20 years have passed and you have bought 100 parts cars. Been there, done that, still doing it.
You could not do it today with 55-57 Chevies or with my cars but you could do it with say late 1990s or newer Mustangs, Camaros, Challengers, etc. Those are cars you could find today that are wrecked, rusted or just plain worn out. So if you want to get into the parts business start buying.
DRV & JW454 very good eye there ….well spotted
saw that 65-66 Mustang fender….it ain’t all Chevy !!!!
Good to show this to the wife next time she says that I have too much junk lying around the garage!
No the bad part is she’s right. I have one or two parts for chevy, olds, pontiac, gmc, triumph, lawn mowers, bicycles, old tools, fish tanks, furniture. Oh sh*t it’s even worse than I thought.
Good news there’s a beer fridge somewhere.
If this guy has it all, it sort of shows just how marketable it really is doen’t it?
The million dollar evaluation is the stuff of car collectors not business men.
The main priority here is that the inventory is not lost. Most likely will be purchas ed by one of the major dealers ay a discounted cost. Typically how it works. ..
Figure–if it’s so valuable–sell it yourself and make the million.. Otherwise–the value is in the owners head..
If this were all NOS parts, maybe. But used? Good luck!
It would be great for a computer geek/car enthusiast to inventory this live on a daily basis and watch it vanish quickly. Take an old abandoned K Mart or Wal Mart and have a field day!! I wiuld retire to do this just for the hell of it
Is this some of the stuff from that Florida auction ? He talks about two cars – just not sure this adds up – will do the math vrs time vrs what kids will want in the future….?
Chevette left rear quarter skin may be NOS. Flip that first for major return on your investment!
I’ve seen parts stashes like these for many models–Corvair, MGB, on an on. After things start spilling out of the confines of one mans warehouse it boarders on pathological hoarding. Danchuk to the rescue!
The big question is did he hoard parts or did he sell parts? If he was an active seller of parts that 60% of his stash is probably never going to sell. Why? Because it would have already sold by now. Basically if you go to buy someone out who actively sells and they have 100 of something, that means if you buy all their stuff you will die with 90 of that same part. The stuff that doesn’t sell, normally never sells. The stuff that does sell, is normally in low supply or long gone, if the guy sold parts. Now if we just a methodical hoarder you might have some really good stuff here, but those guys usually aren’t very organized, not like this stash. I went to buy a guy out one time who had 275 Porsche 356 B/C steering columns, he said he got $100 a piece for them. I told him I would probably sell 10 in my lifetime so I could make an Effiel Tower in my front yard with the remaining 265 of them. He didn’t like that answer. All inventory is not actually potential $$$.
Looks like a job for Richard and Dennis from gas Monkey. Buy it, then sell it for a profit before moving anything. Seems like it would be a great resource if someone could actually inventory and start moving it all. THere are lots of tri 5s left in the world.Would be a daunting task though.
You are right there are a LOT out there. Every car show is littered with them. But how many UNFINISHED Tri Fives are there?
How many of those need said parts? How many of the owners would rather a PERFECT repro part? How many times do the parts from this stash need to move to get to the final sale and what does that add to the cost?
I’d love to see how this plays out.
I can’t help but be intrigued by this so I checked out the original ad. The organization is pretty amazing! Though I still see this as a tough sell.
The box of steering wheels is my favourite example.
How many cars have you seen without a steering wheel?
How many old scratched and cracked steering wheels are you you going to sell?
This kind of business, dragging a trailer full of parts around from show to show all summer is the stuff of a retired guy. Doesn’t need the money just happy to be out and chatting with car guys. Probably spent more on gas and vendors fees than he recouped.
I bet this is a survivor selling off a father’s or uncle’s stash. Would explain the unrealistic asking price, and the contact is named Jason. As a Jason myself, I’ve yet to meet another that wasn’t born in the early 70s. Pretty far from retirement age.
Maybe I read too many Sherlock Holmes stories.
Generally correct on the name Jason. I have a son named Jason, Born in 1977. :)
I think the issue is with the brand of car. If this guy was a parts seller and had something you needed but you thought he wanted too much you could go to a dozen other places. Seriously how many Chevrolet specific new parts catalogs can one pick up any of the larger swap meets? A used fender you have to work on. A new Danchuk
The internet has also changed the game. Check the listings for Tri-5 and see how many comes up. It is easier to hit buy it now at 5:AM. while in your underwear.
As a seller on ebay for instance that stainless might be worth big bucks. When the guy paypals you the money and you send it out and gets tangled in sorting at the USPS. The guy will lock up your account when he receives it not as described until you send his money back. Great you got the insurance. Good luck. Did you have two inches of padding in the box? Bottom line. You are out your time/trim and money. Selling parts isn’t all that unless you were having an onsite auction and everything is removed and paid for the day of.
If these were NOS AMC Javelin and AMX parts different story. The reason is you cannot get those restoration catalogs for AMC’s except if you want carpet that you have to trim to make fit. An NOS 70 AMX grille used to be $2000. Used 1969 AMX hood $1200. and so on. But then you have those 275 steering columns. Good one Adam!
No thanks. Why pay someone to clean up their property and loose both time and money? I’ll pay the $2000 if I need a grille.
This reminds me of a guy with a barn load of Corvette parts I found here in NH. I needed a windshield frame and trim parts and by word of mouth I found this guy. His alarm system was a beagle chained up outside the barn. Inside, there were rows of things like steering columns, doors, etc. He had some C3 frames and torched the frame off for me.
This was about 30 years ago and I wonder whatever happened to all of those parts.