Journal: Which Classic Do You Wish You Could Buy New OEM Parts For?

Which Classic Do You Wish You Could Buy New OEM Parts For?

By Alex Sobran
November 28, 2017
5 comments

If you’re the kind of person who thinks of Godzilla less as a monstrous manifestation of scientific folly and more of a JDM touring car hero, you may have read yesterday about Nissan’s Nismo Heritage announcement. The gist of that is this: together with a network of tuners and suppliers, the program will begin in earnest on December 1st by offering a selection of new parts for the R32 generation of the Skyline GT-R. They won’t sell you every component necessary to build one like a massive Tamiya model kit in your garage, but they are offering a healthy catalog that includes a little bit of everything, from badges to bushings, wiring harnesses to wings.

Classic support from manufacturers is nothing new though—if nothing else, it’s a great way for OEMs to show support for the enthusiast niche while making some wild profit margins on trim clips for the second time around— but I think it has started to shift a bit as more and more cars begin to fall under the moniker of “modern classic.”

BMW will soon shift the E39 5-Series parts service under their BMW Classic department for instance, and though the R32 Skyline isn’t quite as new a car as that, it’s still clearly a product of a different era than the first Skylines to wear the GT-R badge in the ‘70s. It’s hard to say exactly where the divide occurs in terms of years, but it’s not hard to recognize which cars fall on either side.

It makes sense for manufacturers to expand their classic services to include more model years as time goes on, and we hope the trend continues, but in the meantime, we want to hear from you: which car do you wish would receive OEM support again?

Photography by Jayson Fong, Ted Gushue, Federico Bajetti, Jeremy Heslup, Andrew Golseth, and Courtney Cutchen

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Denial Smith
Denial Smith
2 years ago

For Mercedes 60-80s and Porsches of the same years. In general, I recently found a site that produces a radiator fan – https://www.chinatongchi.com/ , and as I understand it, they can make custom options.

Leftwich Kimbrough
Leftwich Kimbrough
5 years ago

My car is a 1983 Mercedes 300 CD for which I am looking for some parts to complete its restoration.

Leftwich Kimbrough
Leftwich Kimbrough
5 years ago

My car is a 1983 Mercedes 300 CD for which I am looking for some OEM parts to complete the its restoration.

Sam
Sam
6 years ago

Would love to be able to buy new OEM parts for my Rx-7 Fb.

Bertram Wooster
Bertram Wooster
6 years ago

Given a clean bodyshell, it’s possible to build any number of fun old cars from parts catalogs (MGs, BMW 2002s, Triumphs, old Lotuses, Porsches, etc.), but there’s stuff old Alfas need that are just gone, like any of the six ignition modules and the door striker pins and hood hinges (which actually wear out) that can make keeping it on the road a real PITA.

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