RARE PARTS: White Post Restorations

A partially disassembled car is sitting in the shop. The vehicle’s owner is calling daily, asking if it’s fixed. In desperation, you’re haunting salvage yards, hitting every source you know, then following up every source your sources know, and still…you can’t find that part. If you do find it, trust is a major issue, because you don’t know until it arrives if you’re getting the right one, or more importantly, if it’s good enough quality. When a part is the only thing between the car and its tires—such as with steering and suspension components—you really don’t want anything questionable. But when losing the customer is your only other option, you’re really between a rock and a hard place.
Billy Thompson of White Post Restorations in White Post, Virginia, knows what it’s like to search for hard-to-find parts. His company has been in the antique and classic car restoration business since 1940—it was founded by his father and is now being run by his son and grandson. When dealing with antiques and classics, no substitutes are accepted; they must be 100% genuine. “We do everything original, we don’t modify,” says Thompson. “To do a complete restoration, that means seat springs, upholstery, body, paint, sheet metal, engine, transmission, fuel pump, water pump, carburetor, and every piece of every car. It’s got to be all done right and when all assembled, it all has to work. And all the parts have to work together, as a team, to make a perfect car.”
Obviously that won’t happen if any of the parts are defective, and it certainly won’t happen if the parts can’t be found at all. White Post Restorations literally goes to the ends of the earth if need be to get them. Before they had trusted sources, they hunted through salvage yards hoping to find parts in decent shape and, if necessary, would build or repair the parts themselves. As many shops and individuals have done and still do, they would also sometimes place an ad in Hemmings Motor News, and usually hear back several months later with someone who claimed to have the part. Hopefully the part was actually what they needed, and hopefully it was high enough quality that it would work or could be restored.
A number of years ago, though, Thompson ran across a gold mine—at least when it came to hard-to-find steering and suspension parts—in the form of Stockton, CA-based Rare Parts, Inc. This unusual company makes a practice of stocking high-quality hard-to-find parts. And if they don’t stock it or it can’t be found elsewhere, they will build it.
This source has saved Thompson from losing business several times. One notable occasion was the time White Post was restoring a 1951 Lincoln Cosmopolitan, for which tie rod ends were not available anywhere. It had to be 100% right before it left the shop, because it was going to an overseas customer, to a place where further repairs would be impossible. Thompson’s son, W. R., sent an old tie rod from the car to the company. They quickly manufactured the needed tie rod ends—and added the item to their catalogue for anyone else potentially in the same situation.
“It’s always a job to find the parts,” Thompson says. “So once you find someone good and trustworthy, you stay with them, and we’ve been dealing with them for 20 or 30 years now.”

For more information visit Rare Parts, email rparts@rareparts.com; call (209) 948-6005; fax (209) 948-2851; or write to Rare Parts at 621 Wilshire Avenue, Stockton, CA 95203.