WHY DO CAR GUYS NEVER THROW STUFF OUT?

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Jerry Admin
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It’s an age-old question.

Why do car guys never throw stuff out?

Jerry Sutherland

That looks like a simple question but it’s not because old cars aren’t simple. They’re complicated machines built with thousands of pieces, so they are essentially giant rolling jigsaw puzzles.

If you’ve ever done a major project you’ll run into many minefields, but reassembly is the biggest challenge. Car guys often fall back on this quote, “The hardest part of a project is the last 10 per cent”. Those are the most painfully accurate worlds you’ll hear in the car hobby.

It’s never the big pieces that are the problem—it’s the little pieces. Big pieces like hoods and quarter panels are easy to figure out because their size means they can only fit one way. Some guys may bow to the Bondo gods to make them fit, but the big panels always end up at or near the correct spot with no research required.

That’s not the case under the skin because those little pieces are like hurdles on a racetrack—they’re designed to be obstacles.

That is why a parts car is the best investment you can make. Your neighbors will hate you and your wife will start auditioning divorce lawyers, but that parts car will be your life raft in the nasty hurricane of a car project.   

A parts car is your reassembly instruction manual. You can take a million pictures, or you can look over at the parts car and the answer unfolds without a major search through thousands of files. Trust me, most car guys are marginally organized, so the parts car is an invaluable resource.    

I had a ’59 Plymouth parts car right next to a ’59 Plymouth project during reassembly and to be honest—I couldn’t have done it without the parts car. Parts manuals only tell you so much because they were printed for professionals who knew what they were doing—not clumsy guys like me with questionable talent.

Things like windshield wiper assemblies or crank window mechanisms never make sense to me until I can look at how they were set up at the factory. Some guys are mechanically intuitive – I’m not.    

The other thing about a parts car is its role as a parts source. A parts car might have a better generator or signal light mechanism, so you don’t have to deal with a guy selling parts who has less integrity than a fentanyl dealer.

A parts car also has all the little screws, washers and trim fasteners you’ll need so you won’t have to deal with an online bandit.

Trim pieces on the parts car allow you to make a choice on your project car because a parts car that has sat in the bush for 50 years probably has better stainless pieces than your project car. That’s because the parts car didn’t see the real world of parking lot wars—you often get the same result with the bumpers. 

None of this information about parts cars will carry any weight with your neighbors, your local bylaw enforcement guys, or your wife…but you can always buy a tarp.     

Jerry Sutherland

By: Jerry Sutherland

Jerry Sutherland is a veteran automotive writer with a primary focus on the collector car hobby. His work has been published in many outlets and publications, including the National Post, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Ottawa Citizen, Montreal Gazette, Saskatoon StarPhoenix, Regina Leader-Post,  Vancouver Sun and The Truth About Cars. He is also a regular contributor to Auto Roundup Publications.

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