Mysterious Trove of Vintage Porsche Parts for Sale Again After Original Deal Collapsed
Disclaimer: Warehouse itself not included.
Folks who know air-cooled Porsches will know that parts for them are (almost literally) worth their weight in gold. Last month, a huge warehouse packed to the brim with hundreds of air-cooled Porsche parts went up for auction and sold for $105,000. Now it's been mysteriously re-listed on Bring a Trailer, which means there’s a second chance for you to scoop up this treasure trove.
The original seller, Henry Schmidt of Supertec Performance in Fallbrook, California, re-listed the lot after "the [original] sale was not completed due to no fault of either the seller or bidder." Schmidt expanded on why the sale fell through in the comments, saying that the original buyer "was struggling with a way to just store the parts." He continued, "We talked and mutually decided that he wasn’t really the right guy for this endeavor."
While it’s a valuable collection of parts, it has some serious caveats that apparently killed the original sale. Schmidt wants payment within 10 days of the hammer dropping, and will only store the colossal parts inventory for 30 days. After that, he intends to charge monthly storage until the merchandise is moved. He isn’t selling the shelves or benches with the parts, and clarified that he isn’t selling the business either—just the parts themselves. The seller estimated the amount of parts in inventory, and it would be a challenge to move them all in a month without another warehouse. As listed on BaT, the lot consists of:
- ~36 MFI injection pumps varying degrees of assembly
- ~98 MFI throttle bodies (69, 70-71, 72-72)
- ~125 MFI intake stacks (magnesium and plastic)
- ~150 camshaft housings (early only)
- ~18 air filter housings (early MFI and carburetor)
- ~ 4 turbo air filter housings
- ~120 valve covers (magnesium, aluminum, Turbo)
- ~160 chain boxes
- ~240 chain box cover (magnesium, aluminum)
- ~420 cylinder heads; 70 complete cylinder heads of varying usability and miscellaneous single heads (2.0, 2.2, 2.4, 2.7, 3.0, 3.2, 3.6)
- ~200 cylinders (some with piston, some separate pistons)
- ~800 connecting rods (2.0, 2.2, 2.4/2.7, 3.0, 3.2/3.3/964)
- ~150 gear sets (901, 914, 915, 930)
- ~30 main shafts (mostly 901, 914, 904)
- ~180 throttle valves (2.4, 3.6)
- ~16 intermediate shafts
- ~51 crank shafts
- ~54 flywheels
- ~27 CIS air boxes with runners (2.4, 2.7, 3.0)
- ~30 differential housings
Suffice to say that’s a lot of parts, and this isn’t even a full accounting of them. Their appeal would be for enterprise, not so much for an enthusiast stash. There are easily a few hundred thousand dollars in parts here, but there’s also a lot of overhead in storing, cataloging, listing, and fulfilling sales on every single item. For $105,000, it might be a sound business deal, but it'd certainly take a lot of back-end work. That must be why the original buyer couldn’t make it happen, even for that relatively low price.
It’s a risky endeavor, but surely a Porsche-based parts business with existing storage infrastructure could figure it out. Nonetheless, the auction of the cache ends in three days. This is a rare second chance to own a collection of rare air-cooled parts, and you can be sure it won't come again.
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