1930's-1960's Mopar NOS Parts Collection

Some of these parts have recently been made available for purchase.

This is the story of a large NOS parts collection that I had the brief opportunity of photographing.

Between 1945 and 1980 the locations of several of the Athens Georgia area Chrysler, Dodge, Desoto, and Plymouth dealerships moved from location to location. Originally they were all downtown, in rather small locations, and today, they exist on large tracks of land surrounded by shopping malls and chain restuarants.

During those many location changes, rather than making room for old parts in the new parts warehouses, management ordered the disposal of the old parts! During the 1950's and 1960's, the manager of the body shop at one of the dealerships, was an avid mopar enthuisiast, and made arrangements to take care of the disposal of some 20,000 parts.

So, for forty to fifty years, these parts were packed into several out buildings on a rural farm. The body shop manager restored several antique automobiles, no doubt using parts from his collection. Occasionally, he'd take a box of parts to a show in Hershey, and every once in a while he'd allow a parts vendor to buy parts from him.

He passed away a few years ago and as urban spawl consumed the rural area where the farm was located, his widow and his son decided to sell the farm to a land developer. His son had a great appreciation for the parts, but didn't have the time to organize it and sell the collection on a piece by piece basis. He offered it to a few of his friends that were Mopar guys, and they didn't hestitate. It took several weeks to dig the parts out of these out-buildings. Some of the buildings had partially collapsed while other rooms were packed floor to ceiling with parts in a fashion that didn't allow access to the room until the parts were removed. Some part were actually buried under ground as leaves had decomposed into soil and covered many parts. Most parts were inside buildings, stacked on shelves. The collection was reorganized and moved to a warehouse where it was somewhat organized. Several large parts dealers were invited to come and look at the parts, and the collection was soon there after sold. (for vendor contact information visit this link).

Initially this web page was erected for the purpose of advertising the collection to prospective buyers. Even though the collection was sold, I've decided to leave these pictures up just because its an interesting story and describes the extent to which some mopar fanatics will actually travel when old NOS parts crop up. This all took place in 2004, so it also goes to show that the stuff is still out there! Here are some pictures. This was about 10% of the collection.

Mopar Parts Collection

1930's-1960's Mopar NOS Parts Collection