Thinking about parting out

[marios]

Guys,
After meeting with Franz at silver star mercedes, he thinks I am better off selling the car as is or parting it out if I have the patience.

The car is a 230 sl and it is complete and it was running when I bought it. All of the original parts are there. Is there a market to part the car out and not finished with half the car unsold?
I need to make a decision.

[ctm14]

Mario,

  Sorry to hear this. Your post is not very clear. What is Franz seeing that makes him suggest parting it out. Does it have major rust? 

[marios]

I showed him pixs and he said the cost of restoring exceeded the future value of the car. He also said there was quite a bit of rust. Having seen the car in person, I don't think that is the case but I am no expert.

I am evaluating all options right now and parting out the car is one of them.

[JamesL]

I owned - briefly - a very rusty 1968 SWB 911T

Same baot as you - cost to restore would be more than future value and I managed to flip the car (to the guy who would have done my resto) and he managed to find someone with deeper pockets than I. Car now looks FANTASTIC and is in Singapore. I regret the flip, despite my brain telling me that it made financial sense not to chase good money into it: The cost of restoration exceeds the worth of the car today, despite the quality of the work (see the link)

 So.... go carefully.... If you bail, and get (most of) your money back, at least your powder is dry for another car in better condition. However, if this is THE car for whatever reason, then that reason needs to be factored into the financial transaction

http://www.canfordclassics.co.uk/gallery/porsche-911-t-rhd-1968/

[Raymond]

I knew a fellow who owned 243 collector cars, a collector car dealership, and a restoration company.  What he told me was there is no way to make money restoring a car unless you're the one charging for the restoration.  Obviously, there are exceptions; he had a couple himself, but mainly the statement holds up.  Those of us who have a car because we love it, have spent more on it than its resale value.  When you start getting into new chrome, new parts, upgrades, paint, etc. unless you can do all the work yourself and put no value on your time, you won't be on the positive side of the financial equation.  What you have to decide is which side of the emotional equation are you on.  How much time and labor will you enjoy investing vs. how much time do you want to spend removing, cleaning, photographing, and advertising parts so that you can negotiate, collect funds, and ship to places all over the world?

[badali]

I have parted out a few cars that were the same as my 280 SE 4.5.  I learned alot about how the car was put together.  I took every nut and bolt from each car.  There is no better way to learn about a car than disassembling one.  If you do find another one better suited for restoration you can use the current one to learn on while working on the one to keep.  You may even get some nice usable parts from it.  There are alot of parts that are very expensive that may be used on you next car.

[George Des]

Agree. You can restore a house and fully expect to make money in a flip--at least this was the case before we had the recent downturn in the housing market, but to expect this same situation in the car restoration business is surely folly. Most of us restore our cars because we love owning them and driving them and not because we see an opportunity to make money by re-selling them.