Swap meet preparations gathering pace

A couple of trailers will arrive with what might look like highvalue scrap to an event that delivers surprises every year.

They will arrive with something much better than scrap: they will be laden with carefully curated car parts picked from a specialist parts shed.

South Canterbury Vintage Car Club members will this week load parts from the club’s parts shed, ready for sale at the Winchester swap meet.

The 32nd annual meet is on Saturday at the Winchester showgrounds. Thousands of people are expected to visit and take a chance at some unexpected bargains.

Club parts manager John Campbell said the parts would be from vehicles whose histories stretched as far back as the 1920s.

Hub caps, wheels, radios, mirrors and even engines will vie for a place at the club’s stall and in a buyer’s garage or car.

The parts will be sold to supplement what money is made from the meet, which has been the club’s major fundraiser for decades.

Chairman John Knowles said this year the money raised will be used to improve the club’s rooms on Redruth St, Timaru.

Campbell, an A grade mechanic by trade, said the club members collected what some might label ‘‘junk’’ but what the trained eye would see were parts that were simply too good to throw out.

And the trained ear would get plenty from the swap meet too: there was was always the chance for a good yarn with like-minded people, Campbell said.

As with previous years, he expected people from all over the country - and even overseas - to visit the meet.

Fellow club member Jim Geddes, who was surveying the parts shed for saleable candidates this week, said the club members would get a lot of pleasure from seeing others get the parts they needed from their stall.

‘‘We are just interested in getting people on the road or back on the road.’’

They hoped the club’s trailers would leave the meet empty - but whatever parts were not sold would return to the shed, waiting for a new owner in the future.