The modern At Home Mechanic can find the service parts to repair his or her car online or in the local auto parts store with ease. The supply of Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) parts for cars made in the last 50 years is truly impressive. Need a set of sparkplugs for a 1960 Rambler? Chances are that you can get them delivered to your doorstep within 48 hours.
But what if you want to improve your car's performance? Go faster, stop quicker or get better mileage? Parts that provide that kind of improvement are also generally available at your local parts store... providing that your car is supported by the Aftermarket. The Aftermarket is the broad term that refers to the huge industry of specialty manufacturers who make parts to dress up or speed up your car. If there are enough enthusiasts with a need for speed, there will be an enterprising businessman who will fill that need. Want a set of exhaust manifolds for a V8 Chevrolet from the 1970's? There are several manufacturers who will be happy to sell you a set.
But what if you want to improve that 1960 Rambler? How many different manufacturers do you think are supplying dress up or improvement parts for a car that has been out of production for over 40 years and did not sell a lot of units originally? A businessman would go bust if he committed his time and money to a product for a slender (if nearly non-existent) market segment.
Lets say, for the sake of argument, that you want to add a front air dam to the your 1990 Honda Prelude 2.0Si. It just so happened that I was faced with this dilemma recently. The first place you go is to the online Honda parts retailers like www.Hondaautoparts.com , look up the part you need and simply order the part. But in this example, Honda does not carry this part. And the local junkyard does not have one in their inventory.
Knowing that Acura is Honda's sister company, I look up a same year Acura product on www.acuraautoparts.com that is roughly similar to the Prelude. In this case, the 1990 Integra is about the same sized car and I can see from the illustrated list of parts that both cars' front air dam have the same number of attachment points.
I ordered the Acura front air dam for sue on my Honda Prelude. But I was disappointed to find that of the eleven attachment points on the Honda only one (the middle) matched the attachment point on the Acura part. Plus, the Acura air dam had some extra tabs that did not fit into any Honda slots. But the Acura part was approximately the right size and a pre-installation test fit revealed that it could be made to work.
I trimmed off the extra tabs with a razor blade and I connected the air dam using the one common attachment point in the middle, which centered the air dam on the front bumper. Using self-tapping screws I was able to firmly attach the air dam to the car and the finished product looks factory correct.
My 1990 Honda Prelude is sporting a 1990 Acura Integra front air dam and for all but the fussiest perfectionist, it looks as if it was designed for the car. It is possible to mix and match parts from one side of the corporate family with the other side if the original parts were never offered. Chevrolet parts will often fit a Pontiac, Ford parts will often fit a Mercury and as much as it may annoy Porsche fans, Volkswagen parts will sometimes fit their cars. Do not get discouraged if you can not find what you want in your car's parts catalog, the chances are good that a determined search will get you close on the other side of the family tree.