by David Coleman
The day is indelibly inked in Gary Emory's mind. He was a novice parts
gofer at Chick Iverson's Porsche dealership in Newport Beach, with an
assignment to pick up an order from the distributor in Culver City.
As he awaited delivery of his parts, he noticed to his horror that
authorized personnel were dumping brand new 356 seats, motors and
transmissions into trash bins behind the distributor's facility. What
he saw that day "used to drive me crazy because I'm an enthusiast."
These photos are in 1974. Gary and Doyne began unloading everything as the trucks rolled in and dropped off pallet after pallet of N.O.S. parts. Everyday was like Christmas.
Emory
subsequently learned that those parts in the dumpster were recycled
before they ever actually reached the dump by the enterprising dump
rats, who sold the goods on the black market.
Porsche
knew this was happening too. So they took measure to insure that these
parts, that were supposed to be written off as surplus inventory, were
actually destroyed.
Emory
recalls that "field reps would take a hammer to the parts they wouldn't
buy back from the dealers. We used to sneak around and try to keep them
from wrecking the parts, but their job was to destroy that stuff."
After awhile, the distributors got smart and installed on-site crushers.
Although
it would take Emory 15 years to come up with a better scheme for
disposing of surplus inventory, he finally convinced Porsche to allow
him to bid on, buy, and distribute these valuable items that would
otherwise be mindlessly destroyed. In 1975, he opened Porsche Parts
Obsolete in Costa mesa, and for nearly a decade, he acquired,
catalogued and sold both vintage and new old stock (NOS) parts that had
been declared dead inventory at the dealer and distributor levels.
Emory vowed to Porsche that he would improve the goodwill by making
available parts the customers could find nowhere else- a precursor of
the Porsche Vintage Program.
Along
with all the prosaic bits and pieces came a truly astonishing cache of
racing equipment that was so extensive that it arrived at Costa Mesa in
four separate semi-trailers. In addition to all the Carrera 2, 904, and
906 parts that Porsche had been collecting for years in Lanham,
Maryland, Emory also acquired Richie Ginther's entire 914 racing
inventory from Culver City.
Those
were the glory years at Porsche Parts Obsolete, when Emory could
provide complete annular brake sets for spyders, sheet metal for
Carrera 2 engine compartments, 9" alloy-steel wheels for 906s, and
cranks, rods and blowers housings for the four-cam motors. Looking back
at that period now, Emory says wistfully, "Most of the best cars in the
U.S. have parts that came out of my inventory in those days."
In
1992 Gary decided it was time to make a lifestyle change. So he packed
up the operation and headed for Oregon. He purchased a 50 acre farm in
the Willamette Valley. This is the heart of Oregon wine Country. After a
year and 20 semi truck loads Gary was ready for business in his 15,000
sq foot barn.
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