VCCA Home Forums GENERAL DISCUSSION General Discussions What 30's repo parts have become most expensive?

Every now and then I hear someone in the local club talking about how expensive it is to buy some really scarce or rare part. One friend said a NOS genetrator for his early Cadillac (circa 1906) was available for over $20,000.

I was looking over 4 years for the 4 "special bolts" that connect my '31 headlight bar to the fenders, a 5/16"x1" bolt with a round "almond" shaped head. Originally sold for .15 each, back in the day, but now a stainless steel repo is about $70 per, an inflation rate of about 500 fold. I'm not complaining about the suppliers, these are a very complicated shape to make, but circa $300 delivered for 4-5/16" nuts is nuts!

Anyone found similar story trying to make your car reasonablly original?

BTW, eventually I lucked out and found a headlight bar on eBay for $120, complete with all four bolts in decent shape, so in effect I got the bolts free.

The ones at the Filling Station are $69.50 for the set of four, I have thought about getting them as I need two to replace some carriage bolts and the other two would need to be re-chromed so it may be a wash as for the price, at least they are available.

Oh, I saw their ad and it said $69.50 each. They should change the ad to $69.50 for set of 4 as indicated in their catalog. I asked a machinist who makes parts like these for older cars, and he agreed they would be a difficult piece to make, even though he has some excellent milling machinery, would need to start with 3/4" SS bar and he could not make them for less than $100 a set. I seem to recall initially a couple of years ago FS had them at about $40 per bolt? Maybe my memory is fading like everything else.

my guess would be the convert rear window frame 1938 on back