75ZT Community

I can speak from experience having been on the committee and also involved with (that also means helping finance) the spares operation of the Rover P6 Owners Club.

We bought a vast amount of stock from Rover, obviously, they no longer wanted to supply spares for the P6 or had excess stock. You typically pay 10% of retail but take the lot when buying bulk loads. You go through what is on offer and work out if the nice pieces support paying for the dross items that no one will want. We therefore bought two arctics load. Rented premises in Lancashire. When the stock arrives you discover that some of the nice pieces are not there.

Someone now has to run this in the case of the P6ROC the person did it for free.

You then get people moaning about the price of items - they expect them to be pence and not at a normal rate.

In the end the stock was sold to a trader who eventually off loaded it to another trader. That trader, who I knew well invested a lot of money in having items remanufacturered, including wings. He found that people moaned at paying £150 per wing - everyone had said they wanted them until it came time to hand money over.

I want to see our cars survive, the above is just a cautionary tale.

That sounds a very familiar story Paul...

PaulT wrote:I can speak from experience having been on the committee and also involved with (that also means helping finance) the spares operation of the Rover P6 Owners Club.

We bought a vast amount of stock from Rover, obviously, they no longer wanted to supply spares for the P6 or had excess stock. You typically pay 10% of retail but take the lot when buying bulk loads. You go through what is on offer and work out if the nice pieces support paying for the dross items that no one will want. We therefore bought two arctics load. Rented premises in Lancashire. When the stock arrives you discover that some of the nice pieces are not there.

Someone now has to run this in the case of the P6ROC the person did it for free.

You then get people moaning about the price of items - they expect them to be pence and not at a normal rate.

In the end the stock was sold to a trader who eventually off loaded it to another trader. That trader, who I knew well invested a lot of money in having items remanufacturered, including wings. He found that people moaned at paying £150 per wing - everyone had said they wanted them until it came time to hand money over.

I want to see our cars survive, the above is just a cautionary tale.

Were the members allowed to buy the parts and sell them on at a profit . . .

Tourerfogey wrote:

PaulT wrote:I can speak from experience having been on the committee and also involved with (that also means helping finance) the spares operation of the Rover P6 Owners Club.

We bought a vast amount of stock from Rover, obviously, they no longer wanted to supply spares for the P6 or had excess stock. You typically pay 10% of retail but take the lot when buying bulk loads. You go through what is on offer and work out if the nice pieces support paying for the dross items that no one will want. We therefore bought two arctics load. Rented premises in Lancashire. When the stock arrives you discover that some of the nice pieces are not there.

Someone now has to run this in the case of the P6ROC the person did it for free.

You then get people moaning about the price of items - they expect them to be pence and not at a normal rate.

In the end the stock was sold to a trader who eventually off loaded it to another trader. That trader, who I knew well invested a lot of money in having items remanufacturered, including wings. He found that people moaned at paying £150 per wing - everyone had said they wanted them until it came time to hand money over.

I want to see our cars survive, the above is just a cautionary tale.

Were the members allowed to buy the parts and sell them on at a profit . . .

Controversial!

I think the best thing would be to set up a second-hand spares service, but I can see it being a real challenge. It would need space to store the bits and member's time to acquire bits (from scrappies or buy complete cars suitable for breaking) and post out. At least a stockpile of second-hand bits would be useful for the future.

Ideally, you need a commercial enterprise to do this.

The problem is space is required and people to carry out the dismantling, advertising, packing and posting.

Firstly, the premises will be in a cheap rent area, then a few people to give up time for the benefit of the rest. Enthusiasm might be high to start with but might diminish. They also need to search out cars to buy and get them transported.

If you have a commercial organisation doing this prices might be a bit higher as they need to make a profit BUT they will be keen to do the work because it is their living. They do need to be supported.