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FEATURE INTERVIEWS:

Rick Schmidt – Ask Rick:

It’s a new dawn, a new day, and a brand New Year! Welcome to 2024 and another riveting Ask Rick segment where I ask him the tough questions!

Rick’s Goals to Succeed In 2024:

With the new year upon us, I feel the need to set goals for the next twelve months. This is my drive to make improvements to myself and my life and make myself better. Rick has never been one to do things like everyone else does. I asked him how he starts the year with goal setting and plans for the future of NPD. The answer was typical for Rick but not typical business. He said he does not really set unachievable goals for a year but has overall attainable goals of continuously adding products to the NPD catalogs of quality parts, and hiring and keeping hard working people that love what they do. NPD does not have catchy business jargon and flashy growth charts covering the walls but takes everyday as an opportunity to serve the customer. He has found that if you offer quality parts that buyers can depend on fitting and they can actually get them, then they are happy and employees are always glad to deal with happy customers. This builds the business through repeat sales and employee retention. Rick added that growth comes with expanding the product line and gaining more customers while still maintaining a focus on a specific market and not over extend into all markets.

Rick’s Take On Buying And Selling At Auction:

MECUM, Barrett Jackson, and other auctions are geared up to start or have actually started for winter 2024. Rick has purchased vehicles at auction before and he said the great deals are not the ones that ring the bell (ding ding ding) as those are the ones that draw the most attention and the most bidders. The cars to watch at auction are the weird or under appreciated models that sit in the background and get sold with very little hurrah. As far as selling, auctions are hard to beat because of all of the hype and the sheer number of eyes looking at all vehicles in the catalog. You cannot get this kind of advertising from a normal vehicle listing and should increase the number of people willing to pay high dollar for what you are selling. There is also the “competition” (or feat-of-missing-out) atmosphere where one buyer feels the need to outbid and beat another buyer and hopefully it is over your car and drives the price way up. As far as who it is better for, Rick sided with the seller and said auctions probably benefits the sale with the enhanced advertising which inversely says the buyer will be paying more.

Car Reviews – Flip This Car At Auction For A Profit!

With auction season here I asked Rick to review three cars with the sole intention of selling them at auction for the most return on investment. The one he kept coming back to was actually a truck, a Gold 1968 Chevrolet K2500 50th Anniversary Special that is in great, original condition. He shied away from the other two either due to extensive owner modifications or the fact that the car is not the actual collectible but something made into a clone of a collectable car. Either way the result is much less predictable than a genuine 100% original vehicle.

Car number two was a 1974 Porshe 911 Coupe with modified drivetrain, lowered chassis, swapped body trim, and numerous other modifications. Rick said this had limited appeal to the consumer market and a wildcard due to the modifications.
Car three was the Ferris Bueller Ferrari clone. This is a full ground up re-creation of the original but it is not a Ferrari and Rick said this is intended to be use, and not a collector. It is still a wildcard and not a dependable investment.

Car Reviews – the Dallas Kibbe Car Search Is Coming To A Close!

I handed Rick, once again, another list of three cars for review as potentials for Dallas to drive. The first one was a truck, a Toyota 4Runner, but was not a flashy shiny truck, but an honest truck that has had a good life with little abuse. It was cheap at only $4k of bidding at the time…..but ended up selling for $12K. Even at that it should a start appreciating in value and with a little investment it could be a great.

Car number two was a 1987 Porsche 944 Coupe that is actually a local car to me and I can go see it and have tested it in person. It is a clean body but otherwise just an old used car that the owner will be tinkering on all of the time. BUT it is a 944!

Car three is a 2013 Scion FR-S that is basically a newer version of the 944 but without having to work on it repeatedly.

Overall the 944 is tugging at our heartstrings and this whole segment might come to a close soon with a purchase for Dallas.

You can find out more about NPD at the website National Parts Depot, or on social media via Facebook.com/ NationalPartsDepot or on Instagram.com/npd_nationalpartsdepot.

Thanks Rick!

-Rob Kibbe