ClassicMuscleUSA.com today, and he told that they just inked a deal to buy on old parts supplier in Nashville, that's been closed for a couple of years. When I was in there, they had all kinds of parts, lots of the oddball stuff that's so hard to find. According to the owner of Classic Muscle, they've got probably $500K worth of inventory (though no one's done a count of it in ages) and at least some of the parts go all the way back to the early 1900s. I don't know when the deal will be finalized, or what the asking price for any of the stuff will be, but if you give them a call after the first of the year, they'll probably be able to give you more information. If you're in the area, you might want to drop by the place, the owner's more than willing to give tours and show you what he's working on. There's no C-bodies there at the moment, but he does have a couple of Mopars, a Tucker that he's doing a frame-off restoration on, and several other interesting cars at the moment.
Well, I went down there today and got a good look at the place (it's the old Gardner's parts store at 305 E. Trinity LN), and I spent some time talking to the owner about his plans for the place.
I'll tell you what he wants to and what's going to happen. He wants the place to be a full line parts shop, with old and new parts available for sale, and be open for business on January 2nd. There's simply no way that can happen. He doesn't have the staff for it, and there's no listing of the inventory anywhere. The place has parts jammed in every nook and cranny, completely unorganized, and most of the stuff is for pre-1980 vehicles. He's already chomping at the bit to make money off the place, so my advice is to show up with the Chrysler part numbers, after market part numbers, a flashlight, and ask to have an employee to show you around. (Check the contents of the box, as some of them are mislabeled.) He's got no hope of getting that place organized, with all that stuff in it, and the only way he's going to be able to do what he wants with the place is to liquidate most of the inventory and start fresh.
Some of the things I found while crawling around the place were glass tail light lenses (Lynx Eye T-371) for 1942 Plymouths, 39, 46-48, 50-52, 54, and 57-61 tail light lenses (most of them glass and probably 40+ years old), as well as some for a 62 Valiant. There were 46-49, 51, 58 Dodge tail lights (both car and truck, BTW). There's also a bunch of Mopar dealer parts, leading me to think that they bought out the inventory of a closed dealership. I didn't see any body panels (but I only saw one of the buildings), but I did spot a near mint Chrysler air cleaner part number 2465363, that had some paint chipped and a tear on the label, but was otherwise perfect. There's piles of new/rebuilt Holly carbs (I checked some of the numbers, they are for Mopars like 383s and 440s.), Rochester and Carter carbs as well.
In the basement, he's got a lifetime supply of parts needed to rebuild just about every alternator/generator you can think of. He's got no plans to do any rebuilding work, and he said he'd be more than happy to sell the lot of that stuff to someone who's interested. There's tons of bearings, connecting rods, pistons, and the like there. All of it still in the original packaging and has never been touched since it was put on the shelf. Sooner or later, he's going to get tired of futzing with all the stuff and sell it back to the original owner, so I wouldn't dawdle too long.