Honda Creating Supply of Parts for Vintage Cars
Parts availability can cause difficulty for some people working on collector cars, especially vehicles which have yet to be ingrained as such. Not every make and model experiences the ease of getting reproduced items for a ‘57 Chevy or squarebody truck.
Honda hopes to alleviate that headache for people restoring vintage vehicles from its brand by creating a supply of "genuine compatible parts”. Starting next year, it has elected to make available some parts which meet a certain level of quality standards in terms of function and performance. Intended to be supplied globally, Honda describes the pieces as genuine compatible parts, words sure to delight anyone trying to reassemble a CRX from the ‘80s.
Well, it’ll delight them in due course. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Honda is starting with the mighty NSX, a car which is starting to hit its stride in the collector world. One example recently raked in over a million bucks at auction. Other models from the brand are experiencing a surge in price and popularity, such as clean examples of vintage Civics and the like. Trims with a performance bent are even more valuable. While some in the collector world look down their noses at these cars, there’s a case to be made that people who were teenagers in the 1990s and now have adult money to spend are simply buying what they desired in their youth, not to mention getting a good hit of nostalgia at the same time.
Still, citing an advancement of technologies such as remanufacturing and 3D printing, Honda feels the range of possibilities of new manufacturing and procurement methods for a continued supply of parts will grow. The term ‘various business partners’ crops up in the bumf, suggesting at least a few of these parts will be hewn by third parties instead of Honda itself. There’s nothing wrong with that so long as the pieces pass muster - there are plenty of non-OEM companies doing a bang up job of designing and building parts which have long since gone out of production. If these parts come with Honda’s stamp of approval, so much the better.
Honda promises more details about the program sometime later this year.
[Images: Honda]
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Matthew buys, sells, fixes, & races cars. As a human index of auto & auction knowledge, he is fond of making money and offering loud opinions.
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Back in the day when Mr. Honda himself was trying to sell his motorcycles here in the states, people had worries about parts availability. He told potential dealers that there would be no issues with parts, and as long as people needed them, he would continue to make them. I'd say for a while that applied to the cars as well because when I worked for Honda in the late 90s, we were still able to get parts for cars going all the way back to the early 80s from the warehouse. And not maintenance parts. I'm talking body panels, interior trim, everything. Now? Good luck. If the car is 8 years old or older those parts will rapidly become unavailable.
Two ways to do it
If you have the drawings or a 3D scanner, these parts are and will be available today. There is 3D/additive manufacturing, but machine shops have become much better as well. The days of pounding. punching and hand cutting are over.