We’ve all been there before. You need a part, it’s impossible to find, next thing you know there’s an entire parts car competing for real estate in the driveway and lowering property values throughout the neighborhood. Or, perhaps you are simply way too good at browsing craigslist for your own health.
What’s your most creative automotive storage solution?
What say you, dear reader? As always, the most entertaining comment by next Monday will receive a prize. Scroll down to see the winner of last week’s QotW, “What’s the hardest restoration part to find for your JNC?”
We sincerely feel for you guys, what with your crumbly AW11 C-pillar trim, oddly PCD’d Mazdas, and entire Mitsubishi Cordias. The struggle is real. You all deserve medals of honor for going above and beyond the call of duty in automobile preservation. The winner is not the one with the hardest to find part, though — that’s nearly impossible to judge — but the one with the most entertaining diatribe about their travails. This week that person is TE27 owner Mike Moore:
Great question! If this one doesn’t crash your server nothing will.
Where do you start, usually by pulling your hair out and peering through blood-shot eyes after late nights searching Yahoo Japan, and trying to justify the extortionate prices.
No my car will NEVER have an original unmolested centre console and that is that!
My personal search is for TE27 Levin Parts, if anyone else out there has ever gone down that road they would know that plastic can be worth is weight in gold, if you don’t believe me look at the price of TE27 Levin front fender badges.
“They will look too new I tell myself”.
Thank god I have got the steel fender arches the last set of those I saw for sale, the price looked like a telephone number!
But anyone that decides to restore, or even own a JNC is in the same situation and who would want to build an Old Muscle Car anyway if you do want to build something from a kit I recommend LEGO.
Keep the faith!
Someone always has your part somewhere……..
Omedetou, your comment has earned you a set of decals from the JNC Shop!
As the parking space is very limited near my house (that’s what you get for living in the center of a small European town) and you only get one parking permit assigned per household, I decided to rent a garage to store my classic. Fast forward one year: the garage is full of NOS parts and car parts that I sell. I even had to create my own storage shelfs to fit everything *around* the Toyota Carina.
Fast forward another year and I suddenly own a Celica as parts car. I dragged it from lockup to lockup a few times, before ending up in my garage. Expelling the Carina to a nearby unattended parking lot. It stayed there for several months before I decided to let go of the Celica.
I moved the Carina back into the garage, but unfortunately I own too many parts now to make it fit (those parts were *inside* the Celica btw). So now I have have moved my automotive parts to the storage in my office to make enough room to enter/exit the Carina properly. Parts hoarding can be so harsh! 😀
Actually using some of the mountains of stuff I accumulated. On an actual car. Makes room for… Creative, isn’t it?
BTW, seriously folks; The first thing I do to a car is swap the wheels for a set of Enkeis and springs for a set of Eibachs. What does everybody do with their stocks? This is worth a vote I think. Winner gets a vinyl tire stack cover!
If you own a rare car like I do, you want to hold on to every part you can find. Simply because you never know when you will see it for sale again.
With the former garages, and the current build project I’ve had a fully finished attic. The projected new garage will have a 20’x 50′ attic, with stairs and a electric attic lift for heavier parts. One wall of the main garage will have built in storage cabinets, which will get used for regular maintenance items and detailing supplies. Work benches, and rolling tool cabinets will complete the storage needs and still allow plenty of room for current and future acquisitions.
Right now this building project is just getting underway, hopefully it will be finished before December.
This is intriguing to me. My driveway looks like a used car lot.
Well, living in the Paris area (France, not Texas!) place is as expensive as in Japan. Don’t own any old japanese tin – not yet? – but a LOT of old Citroen. So I finally resolved myself to rent a little workshop with another Citroen-nut-friend-of-mine.
Problem solved?
Not exactly.
We can park 4 cars inside. And of course we soon had a fifth one ! It’s a ’67 ami 6 sedan that we decided to fully restore. But how are we going to store it ?
Simpler than it looks : it is a body-on-chassis conception, and all my oldies are wagons. So the body is sitting on an old mattress, on the roof of one of my wagon, and the chassis is standing alongside it, against the wall. As for the other parts (engine, suspension arms, wheels, etc.) they are either on shelves or… in the trunk of the wagon.
Only thing now is… well… both my friend and I are long-time readers of your website, and there is this very tempting ’78 coupé Cosmo for sale ! And my own driveway is full (and looks like Ryan Senensky’s).
Renting a warehouse with friends is the way to go. Cheaper than a storage unit and way more space, communal tools, etc.
Somewhere the wife doesn’t know about!
I’d definitely vote for your comment! I kind of had to “hide” one of my acquisitions… 😀
HAA! Truer words have never been spoken.
Friends a lot of friends! fj55, 2 jet skis and 89 Toyota truck with 1j take up space in my garage and driveway. as for my ae86 that gets moved around the street. then i have a friend that stores my 89 Cressida with 1uz still need wiring. then i have a customer/ friend that lets me park the aw11 there. then theirs my mechanic that lets me park a parts car supra with the horrible 7mgte. then there Mondays street sweeper day. All of the drivable cars get moved over to the Mcdonald’s early around 5am so to no get 60 dollar street sweeper tickets. oh then there is my dads old Pontiac sedan that we shoved in the rear corner of our shop.
Having a very understandable father with a spare airplane hangar in the middle of nowhere Texas makes life much easier!
Currently have five stuffed in the hangar, two parked in the garage (awaiting restoration) and one parked in a gravel parking lot behind my apartment in Togo, Japan!
I have four cars with a single one car garage. The AE86 gets to live inside the garage but will soon be booted out. Down the side of the shed, there is just enough room to squeeze in two more cars nose to tail for storage. To get them in there, I had to remove the back fence. I’ve now hinged that rear fence panel, but yet to test it out! When I imported my TE27 shell, that had to be stored next door in my elderly neighbour’s redundant, falling down garage.
And people wonder why I never get any room done on my cars! The AE86 is finished, now time for a major redistribution to get the KE15 in place of the AE86. And cut up the KE25 for donor sills etc.
Living in one condo i had my garage full already with car, scooter and bikes. Instead of buying a new fridge another big tv and refurbish the bathroom i bought a second garage that way i could buy the celica st165