Okay I know its has been AGES... since we started filming project Mercedes Diesel.  I have been meaning to do a video wrap up and planning out how I wanted to shoot it yada yada.. any way I figured I haven't posted in awhile so here are the details and the lessons learned. 

First off did we sell all of the parts?  How much did we make?  Truth be told not to much.  The goal of the project was to give you guys some great info and a how-to video so no worries.  So what happened?  Well plain and simple we sold the whole car to a guy who wanted to put the diesel in a project car he was building.  All and all I think we profited about $2XX some odd dollars.  I even sold the Kawasaki to the guy as well(if you haven't seen my terrible riding skills scroll down the blog and watch the video). 
Now granted yes we did make a few bucks, but we also learned a few lessons that I'd like to share. We also made the realization we probably should have followed some of our own advice. 

First point Buy the latest model car you can find if your goal is to make money.  Simple rule,  new parts = more money.  We bought an old Benz, because it was one of the first vehicles we could find and we had missed out on some better candidates already that day. 

Which brings us to point number two Patience is a virtue: I know you're excited and ready to find that perfect deal, but don't get anxious and let your willingness to own a new rusty pile of junk get in the way of your better judgement.  If you are looking to make money parting a single car you better do your homework and make sure you buy the deal you know is going to work based on your research. 

Our project Mercedes was a perfect example of buying with out doing quite enough research.  We "assumed" that a car this old would mean that some of the parts would come with a hefty premium.  Which was true in fact some of the parts we saw selling on ebay were going for some really good prices.  However we neglected to look at one very crucial factor and that was buyer demand.  Sure old rare car parts can fetch a lot of cash, but that is only if they are in high demand and there are enough buyers out their looking for them.  Little did we realize that after we went to list some of our parts we naturally started looking at old Benz Diesels.  Turns out you can buy one of these bullet proof gems in freaking concours condition for a some what reasonable price.  Now those who do the restorations want high quality parts, but the amount of these cars being driven today just does not warrant people desperately searching for a tail light or a door handle unless you have an ultra rare or high end model. 

Combining the above with the fact that our usual go to site for parts sales eBay has also started to charge a fair amount more for listings and our hopes for profits really started to slim down.  We could have still listed all of the parts individually and taken a huge gamble, but some times you just gotta "know when to fold em". 

So for those of you who want to give buying a parts car a go (especially those looking to make a few bucks) here is the battle plan of lessons to be learned from our shennanigans.
1. As stated above buy the newest cars you can or ones that you have a very specific knowledge of (aka friends who will buy your parts)

2. Wait for the right deal to come along, don't pick up that $300 Yugo just because its there right now.

3. Use tools, and were not just talking about the ones in your garage.  eBay has this great little link in its auction listings that lets you see recently ended auctions.  So you can really see what sold and what didn't and for exactly how much this alone can help you choose the right project to start with. 

4. Budget your time wisely, we tore our car apart in only a few hours, but between everything else we had going on and my long line of excuses we didn't really get on the ball listing stuff for sale.  Don't put it off unless you like having a huge pile of junk in your garage (or apartment).

Follow the above steps and the ones we showed you in the video series and you should have no problems finding the right parts car.  Thanks for watching our videos and we hope you enjoyed them.  I had a great time filming them and I'm hoping to have several more video series coming your way soon as well as a lot more updates and blog posts....stay tuned.

(we actually did sell this grill, wish we didn't it was a sweet decoration for my living room)