My sister sent me this today. She knows I'm incurable!
Patrick Moore, '58 Southampton
Cars: Where's the Perfect Part?
In the past, finding the perfect part for a classic-car restoration meant
joining enthusiast clubs, hanging around swap meets and pawing through
junkyards. How the Web has revolutionized the hunt.
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Roxana Popescu
Newsweek
Updated: 12:21 p.m. ET Oct 9,
2007
Oct. 9, 2007 - While classic-car junkies have always relished the thrill
of the chase, scavenging to find authentic parts for their rebuilds, some
searches can really tax their patience. For, say, a 1963 Chevrolet Impala
lowrider, a popular car in
Now searches that used to last months or even decades can sometimes take
only a few minutes. Joe Kahn of
In
the past, finding the perfect part for a classic-car restoration meant joining
enthusiast clubs, hanging around swap meets and pawing through junkyards. Today
tons of parts are on eBay?and if gearheads can't find them there, there's a good
chance they can on one of the hundreds of other cites created by local and
national retailers. Some, like ClassicJunkYard.com , are massive repositories for all brands and periods.
Others, such as CJPonyParts.com (for
Mustangs) or antiquedodgeparts.com
(for old Dodges), are highly specialized.
The
proliferation of these sites hasn't solved everyone's search problems. Mark
Canon, chief product officer of automotive Web site Autobytel and a former
search-engine guru at AOL, said a study of the search habits of 1,001 broadband
Internet users conducted by his company in May indicated that two-thirds had
spent two or more hours in a single setting searching for specific information.
Not surprisingly, some 72 percent experienced something that could be called
"search fatigue." "They seemed frustrated because they'd get back 4 million
results, but not what they were looking for," Canon says. "Search engines like
Google or Yahoo are not particularly suited to finding that sort of
information." To address that problem, the company has created a new site,
MyRide.com, allowing searches to
be far more specific about the desired brand, vintage, price and driving
experience?like hot-rodding or off-roading.
Buyers and sellers began migrating online about a decade ago, and by now
they've formed a substantial yet surprisingly intimate community. A search
through the forums on enthusiast car sites?places like Hemmings.com or Datsun1200.com?reveals people who
identify themselves by the list of cars they've worked rather than a more
traditional signature. Although most of them never meet, there's a sense that
they know each other. "It's like we're sitting around a virtual garage drinking
beers," says Cecil Bozarth, a business professor at
Car hobbyists' sense of familiarity extends to knowing their rivals at
online auctions. Joe Kahn, who collects ultrarare Tucker memorabilia, like
ashtrays and manufacturer license plates, says the field gets very focused. "You
start to know the people you're bidding against: 'This guy's cheap,' or 'This
guy's got loads of money and is never going to stop bidding'," Kahn says. But
some of the personal element is missing, of course. Rick Payne, who manages an
automotive store and Web site, oldmusclecar.com, in
The emergence of Internet retailing has shifted the supply-and-demand
curves for parts, driving prices up or down. Prices for fairly common parts have
dropped, as the Web has made their commodity status more obvious. On the
flipside, the Internet has driven up the price for more obscure parts. "If you
take it to a swap meet, what are the chances that someone would walk by your
table and need that part?" Bozarth says. Auctions now see premium prices for
specialized parts, since not only are the sellers more informed about the value
of their items, the buyers are competing with people from around the world.
"It's harder to find deals," says Bozarth. Some older buyers still prefer to
traipse around stores and leaf through catalogs, but younger customers expect
instant gratification and are willing to pay for it. "Why would you shop in
person when you can just get it on eBay?" asks Kahn, 28.
And then there are some who straddle this divide, maximizing their
chances by using traditional sources as well as the Internet. Denny Aungst grew
up in a tiny
But for his last hot search he went online, where he found exactly what
he was looking for?a rare hood ornament?in
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21207748/site/newsweek/page/0/