Dads Auto Salvage/economics of 20v wrecking(Low Audi Content)

[only5kgt@uswest.net]

I read the posts on this issue. Sheesh. I understand exactly
what kind of supply and demand issue is going on here... and
that really, in a free market, there's no way around it. But
how come it never seems useful to the private seller? My
favorite example of this was with a wrecked, single car
accident Saab 9000 Turbo I used to have. Bare minimum
insurance (it was worth around $2000 before the accident) so
I had to find the most economical way to dispose of it. Bent
fender, headlight broken, cracked transmission (ouch).
Having just spent upwards of $1000 on a window regulator,
pair of new rotors, and one new OEM wheel, I thought I could
at least get near the four-figure mark as salvage.
Wrong. No junkyard would give me better than $250 for it.
Ended up selling to an acquaintance for $350, who wrecked it
again a year after fixing it.
I admit I'm in rant mode here. But when I couldn't get $1000
for my 5kcst last year (very usable, new tags/tires, needed
hydraulic help) it burns me to think that Audis of similar
vintage (but admittedly much nicer in the 200tq case) are
being purchased from the unwary, at asking price, to be
disemboweled and rot in salvage yards. There were so few 20v
200tq's made for the US that I could see a situation a few
years down the road (when I might otherwise be able to
afford one...I can dream can't I?) where there are *no* 200s
outside fanatics' hands which have not been stripped. And
the fanatics won't sell. Can't say I blame them, either.

Corollary: I don't know if I'm the only Lister with a
parallel Audi/Vespa jones. But a fellow out here in the
desert who shall remain nameless attempted to buy up every
Vespa he could get his hands on for his shop, until he had
several *hundred* on hand. You'd think that this would work
for the enthusiasts in the sense that this guy with more
dollars than sense could buy *our* bikes too, at inflated
pricing. But it didn't work that way. He subbed to every
periodical with classifieds in the region. (This was a few
years back before E-bay etc.) He had garage sale scouts
a-prowling. He bought, with cash, every dusty bike for
asking price. But he wouldn't buy any machine which showed
signs of current enthusiasm. He thus kept any "new
discoveries" from reaching the street at all... while
choking off the parts supply except at the dribble he
grudgingly sold at exhorbitant sums. Supply and demand, of
course. I can't ask for some fairy godmother governmental
agency to make this right, and I wouldn't want to.
But I see the parallel continuing. After acquiring all the
bikes (just about) in the damned Southwest US, did he
prosper, chcuckling madly as he made a mint off all the
aficionados? Nope. He eventually PO'd so many people, he
folded. The problem is, were the bikes... sold at auction?
Thrown in dumpsters by his landlord? Sold at still-inflated
prices in a "fire sale"? None of the above. The jerk
disappeared taking his bikes with him. Creditors still
(apparently) interested in his whereabouts. And with the
soccer hooligans who constitue a sizable proportion of
Vespisti around here, talk of assassination was only partly
joking. Nobody won.

Sounds like a certain Audi salvage situation I heard about
recently. Now, I applaud the owner for making parts
available at the end. There is a difference between these
stories, I admit. But only for the listers with last weekend
free who were near Colorado. The rest of us just got to hear
of them getting crushed. No one got the parts but the guys
who buy steel in bulk.

I am just venting here, admittedly. But can you not see the
connection: When nice 200tqs are getting stripped for parts,
undamaged, the same week Audi yards are closing, and there's
only a few hundred to go around, I begin to feel like this
is some kind of unnatural selection going on. Or, how a
perfectly viable automobile went extinct ahead of its
time...

rant off, comments welcome,
Rob