Prices

The black case appears to be a deal - real black leather!

@Gotno356 posted:

What is happening in this world today? What kind of exotic plastic is being mined in Tibet that demands these prices? Are these Kobe cow hides that adorn these suitcases? Please help me understand.

We're the wrong crowd to ask. You may need to head over to the PCA website for some clarification.

let me make a stab at this .....

assuming this is plastic injection and not cast urethane parts ,

How much does a plastic injection mold cost to make ?  $500 would be cheap , probably $1000-$2000  for the complex ones ,  How many molds ?

Then how many  pieces do you need to make per order  of each part ?

And how big is your market ?    and if you halved the price would you sell 2x the bundles ?  Doubtful ,

So is this a good business ?    No  but who ever made them maybe did it for Love of PreAs , and sold them to Stoddard for a discount .....

This is for any low volume part  with a small market......

PS : I wonder if 3D printing could make these at the quality Porsche guys expect ?

I found out something interesting when I was working on getting my 912 back together in the 90’s. Stoddards was one of the original US Porsche dealerships and they never got absorbed into PCNA. BITD, they bought spare parts by the container load and they often had parts that PCNA dealerships never had.

I once asked a salesman why their price/availability was so different from other dealers. He explained the above and told me their policy was to charge their cost + 20% for everything until it sold out, then the new price would reflect whatever their new cost was. So their cost for spares they bought back in the 50’s and 60’s was 20%-30% lower than anyone else’s. The front rotors for my 69 912 were like $49\each. (They’re over $200 now)

I doubt these are NOS parts. If they are, their policy has changed.

As Imperial noted, there’s a huge upfront cost + economy of scale forces at work here. Possibly these come from Porsche Classic and are original OEM, not Chinese repros.

That suitcase is something else, I don’t think I’ve 3ver seen that in an original Porsche accessories catalogue, but I could be wrong.

I've never seen a suitcase like this one before. It's nice and convenient though.

When I was a member of the New England 356 club, one of the members was restoring a coupe and needed an original 356 Banjo Steering Wheel headlight flash ring, like this:

It seemed that few people were producing those as single items and if they did, they charged an arm and a leg so he decided to work with a local casting house to reproduce one, from another one lent to him by a fellow club member from his Concours-winning car that was getting a facelift.   The reproduction came out great and he was convinced to make a bunch more and started selling them on the 356 registry.  

After visiting the LA Porsche Lit show and meeting reps from the Porsche parts houses, he started producing them for some of those guys to resell and that's what a lot of them have, today.  I think it costs him around $50 to make them (after amortizing tooling) and they retail around $350 - $400 USD.  

I doubt that there are a lot of NOS parts left for sale out there when it's far less expensive to reproduce them.

Never had or have ever seen the leather suitcase/tool kit jobbie there, but my first craftsman metal tool box (which is now in my basement) held all the tools I needed and fit nicely between the tank and the tire. of my 356 A, and later B.

P Tax … is not for the faint of heart…. or you will own nothing and be happy

@imperial posted:

PS : I wonder if 3D printing could make these at the quality Porsche guys expect ?

no, at least not in plastic, yet. Maybe some day.  Today in metal maybe and then apply a ivory like ceramic coating?   or maybe as a plastic core with a ivory like ceramic overcoat and threaded inserts...but then we're getting back to secondary & tertiary processes and EVERY process adds cost/handling..

The leather front luggage case makes me laugh. I just bought a $9.99 tool pouch off Ebay to put my tools in.