$\"\"$ <\/a>Each July the tiny town of Iola, Wis., is invaded by a sea of humanity and old iron. Many in attendance come strictly for the swap meet, which covers about 4,500 spaces.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Old car hobby doing well \u2014 at least \u2018parts\u2019 of it<\/strong><\/p>\n

This article was published by Old Cars Weekly News and written by John Gunnell. We thought you might find it interesting.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t tell me there\u2019s no recovery going on,\u201d said Kurt Kelsey, an Iowa City-based vendor of new-old-stock Pontiac parts. According to Kelsey, his business this year is much better than it has been in a long time. \u201cThe phone has been ringing off the hook every day,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Kelsey\u2019s observation about an up-tick in the market isn\u2019t alone. Positive reports have come from other vendors, parts manufacturers and catalog retailers since late last fall. Despite an unsettled national economy and high unemployment, the old-car parts business seems to be in the midst of a boom.<\/p>\n

During a Dynamat seminar at the Hot Rod & Restoration Show in March, company owner Scott Whitaker said one-day shipping of Dynamat automotive insulation products has been impossible to promise lately, because a large increase in orders has outpaced new hiring. \u201cThe bump in sales wasn\u2019t expected and caught us off guard,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In early April, Bob Marx at Marx Parts in Arpin, Wis., came to visit us and he, too, was upbeat about his rising sales. Marx has been growing his inventory of vintage gaskets and rear main seals and is now rebuilding fuel pumps, but he said that new products do not explain all of the growth he is seeing. Like several other industry veterans, Marx pointed to the TV exposure of the Mecum and Barrett-Jackson auctions as a factor that\u2019s helping the hobby grow. \u201cNew people are getting involved with old cars,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter a winter of inactivity, old cars tend to leak or fail when they are put back on the road,\u201d said Fred Kanter of Kanter Auto Products, who wonders if the business boom might be seasonal. \u201cMarch, April, May every year, it\u2019s the same thing \u2014 spring,\u201d Kanter said. He pointed out that from spring through summer every year, his most popular items are fuel pumps and water pumps. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of factors that affect our business.\u201d<\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/a>You never know what you\u2019ll see at big swap meets. You might come across a 1958 Edsel Pacer looking for a new home.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Al Suehring of Amherst Junction, Wis., specializes in ring gears and is another vendor who feels that the market is strong. We caught up with him at the Vintage Chevrolet Club of America dinner in Chilton, Wis., and he said that his business from the United States and abroad has been showing noticeable increases lately.<\/p>\n
Ray Yager of Classic Industries said the level of growth of reproduction parts sales is \u201chard to keep up with.\u201d His firm supplies MoPar, 1955-\u201957 Chevy, Camaro, Firebird, Nova, Impala and Chevy truck parts, and parts sales for these vehicles are moving in a positive direction. Yager thought the company\u2019s 18-month-old MoPar parts catalog may account for some, but not all, of the huge increase in business he\u2019s seeing. At least one vendor who solely deals in Chevrolets is likewise seeing increases in business.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m having a really good year,\u201d said Ron Kellogg of Chevy Tri-Power. \u201cRather amazing since I\u2019m selling restored multi-carb setups in an era of $5-a-gallon gas prices. I\u2019ve probably sold 25 Tri-Power units \u2014 normally a year\u2019s worth \u2014 since November 2011.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kellogg\u2019s increase proves that car collectors still want high-performance options on their classics.<\/p>\n
In addition to new products, increased TV exposure of the hobby and added catalogs, parts suppliers said both the use of the Internet and increased advertising seem to be attracting more customers. Some big companies such as Mid America Motorworks and Eastwood have begun sending daily e-mails to thousands of potential customers. This takes time and money and employees with Internet skills, but their efforts are paying off with increased sales.<\/p>\n
Many mom-and-pop operations that can\u2019t afford daily e-marketing efforts are creating websites, Facebook pages, blogs and Twitter accounts to reach the marketplace. Hobby events aimed at professionals \u2014 such as the Racing & Performance Expo, the British Motor Trade Association and the SEMA Show \u2014 all offer seminars on Internet marketing techniques to these businesses.<\/p>\n
As their marketing efforts become more sophisticated, parts sellers are also discovering that they can use print media to drive customers to their websites. Companies that never ran a print ad before are discovering that a clean-looking space ad with the right design and not much text can generate strong client interaction. The right picture of a car can catch the potential customer\u2019s attention and a simple e-mail address or website link is all that\u2019s needed to bring business knocking. A good ad will pay for itself much faster these days.<\/p>\n
While an increase in parts sales would suggest that restoration shops and collector car sales are both on the increase, growth in those parts of the hobby isn\u2019t as clear-cut as it is when a part is \u201cchecked out\u201d in an online catalog. Collector car dealers such as Colin Comer of Colin\u2019s Classic Auto in Milwaukee and market players such as Joe Bortz are fairly universal in the belief that collector car prices are off 15-20 percent in today\u2019s market. Some restoration shop owners say that they are busier than they\u2019ve ever been, but others say the opposite.<\/p>\n
From all of the indications we have seen and all the comments we\u2019ve heard, it appears the old-car parts niche is improving for 2012 and this trend will presumably filter down to other parts of the hobby. The hobby is changing in many ways, and the wise businessmen in it are getting more sophisticated as the market grows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":null,"protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cos_headline_score":0,"cos_seo_score":0,"cos_headline_text":"","cos_headline_has_been_analyzed":false,"cos_last_analyzed_headline":[],"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[25,26,24],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9nnZN-sB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1773"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1773"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1775,"href":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1773\/revisions\/1775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}