Parts -- And Parting With Them

As the title indicates, parts are parts unless they're your parts as my car enthusiast-husband would argue. Over the years, we've collected too many parts for our '69 Dodge Charger (my opinion, not his). On the threshold of spring-cleaning, as one looks around (around is the operative word) our garage, one comes to realize it is time to thin out this collection. The other alternative is to build a bigger garage.

As we sat down to dinner one evening last week, I calmly suggested that we consider thinning out this vast collection of bric-a-brac by taking advantage of the 1¢ listing fees promotion currently going on on eBay through the end of March, and by listing the 'no longer needed' parts and accessories on eBay Motors. From the look I received, you would have thought I suggested unsubscribing to all the sports channels.

Okay, so perhaps this wasn't the best dinner topic. Not to be deterred, I put the collective brain cells (all 3 of them) in gear (no pun intended) and came up with additional, more creative ways to get my point across, one of which was to approach the subject with the 'but others are doing' scenario. Hence, the Goldberg Project (refer to Mopar Muscle Magazine March 2008 for the full story). Seems that Bill Goldberg, muscle car extraordinaire, found a low mileage Coronet on Craigslist.com and according to plan, decided the end result was going to have the look and feel of a '65 Super Stock Dodge but it had to be street-legal. Okay, so what does this have to do with convincing my husband we need to part with some parts?

According to the Mopar Muscle article, 'Bill spent time searching eBay Motors for vintage parts, such as N.O.S. taillight lenses, a vintage Sun Tach, and a radio-delete plate. He also found eBay a handy resource to recycle a few other unneeded parts. Which is exactly the point I was trying to get across my over-parted and accessorized hubby. My original plan of action was to ask Bill to convince hubby (and others) that eBay Motors is a great place to help create much need garage space by parting with automotive items no longer needed but Bill's schedule didn't allow for a house call so I had to settle on referencing the magazine article.

So I once again approached the subject of listing some of the unneeded parts on eBay Motors making sure to reference that a certain former wrestler and football pro didn't mind parting with parts and tried to strategize the cleaning of the garage and 'departing' the parts/accessories we no longer needed or used. When my husband gave me one of those 'you've inhaled too many paint fumes' looks, I responded with 'You're idling' (car talk for stop stalling). Realizing I had reached a stale-mate, I decided to drop the matter and list the items I knew we are no longer using and go from there. But my husband buys on eBay as well. Any bets that we end up with the very parts I sell?