Italian swap meet in Victoria?

[pancho]

Is there such a thing as an Italian car swap meet type gig in Victoria? Is there sufficient interest?

[bix]

Pancho,
I've not seen one for a very long time. I'd be very interested if you were planning to put one together.

[colcol]

Swap meets are being made obsolete by ebay, as you can buy or flog parts without having to negotiate with customers, as one that goes to the odd swap meet, [Ballarat is particulary good], the sellers tell me they sell more parts on ebay than they do at swap meets, but its a day out for them and they get to have a chinwag, Colin.

[pancho]

That's the thing though, eBay is so clinical and a lot of people don't want to sell due to fees and mucking around. I think there might be a chance it could work, even if it's thrown in with an italian car show that is on at the time. Anyway, food for thought.

[ALFAAA]

Perhaps we should have a swap meet section at the spettacolo 
Alot of Alfa owners will be there?

[John Hanslow]

AlfaAA, this topic has been raised repeatedly in the last few years and we have had various opinions here.

Firstly we need the room - so with a new location, we needed a bit of pre- planing .  At Como Park, we just ran out of room -  Going from 80 cars on the field to almost 250.

But, if room is available we can look at it  and have a bit of space set aside - perhaps at a nominal price or free for club members ??

Also, a good point indeed as discussed is that with ebay, prior vendors have stated that it is not worth it.

Mr Alfa AA, call me off line refer club contact on home page if you need to discuss.

Cheers.

[Evan Bottcher]

Perhaps we should have a swap meet section at the spettacolo 

I'd second that Alfaaa!  Less for the vendors, more for folk who've got a bunch of old unwanted spares in their garage and just want to see if anyone wants them.  An alfa car boot sale in one corner of Spettacolo?

[pancho]

Maybe we can do it undercover, wear a red cap or have a red sticker on your car 

[alfagtv58]

Sounds like a reasonable idea, may have to look into permits though? Red tape can be a killer at these sort of things....

Pancho, you're not allowed to do anything with those tailights until we talk though

[ALFA156DALE]

I go to the ballarat, bendigo and horsham swap meets every year, there is a surprisingly large amount of italian car stuff including body parts from little blinker lenses, right up to guards and doors, then theres the car manuals and brocures. Horsham is quite a small swap meet but there was one guy there at this years sell a little bit of alfa stuff like books and magazines and he had a couple of stering wheels and bosses. And ballarat and bendigo there is parts for everything and anything   
Ebay is good and bad, since you can get some things cheap and then of course you cant get your hands on the item and have a good feel of the quality.
Bendigo swap meet is coming up in November, its bloody huge and great fun. looking forward to going again
hope to see some alfas there at the car show 

[John Hanslow]

Thaks for the info Alfa156dale.  Perhaps some Melbourne members will go to the Bendigo swap meet and we could have lunch with the local chapter members.

Cheers.

[John Hanslow]

Had a bit of real positive discussion with a  few Register Captains who would like to develop this idea and see how we go it look like we will have a bit of surplus space at Spettacolo on Sunday 30th October.

So we would anticipate having a CAR BOOT SALE with members selling their spare parts etc - non professional. No trailers vans or professional stalls in car boot sale (unless event sponsors who are most welcome).

There would be a small fee and a Spare Parts Line set up - and promoted for the day.  I think we can get  hald a dozen or so for the day.

Who wants to be in and any one want to take names and numbers for me ?