Why This Show Must Be on Every Porsche Lover’s Bucket List

It was a Porsche Parts Palooza.

Last weekend was the 39^th Porsche Lit Fair, held at the LAX Hilton. The show promised private vendors offering over 300 tables-worth of Porsche parts, posters, catalogs, and just about anything you could want in a Porsche, from the 356 Pre-A to all years of 911 up to the 997, and everything Boxster/Cayman from 1997 to 2011. There were even items for 914s and 944s, not to mention a variety of Volkswagen ephemera. (I myself have a handsome VW key fob purchased at a Lit Fair 20 years ago that dangles from my Eurovan key to this day.)

“I’m trying to think the first time I went to the Hilton, people kept saying, ‘You have to see this,’” said Porsche racer Patrick Long. “It’s wall-to-wall toys and literature, grille badges, and little knickknacks. But what really struck me was it was so international, there are people from all over the world who came to LA for a week of Porsche collecting and social time.”

The Lit Fair has been put on by Stoddard NLA LLC, a company that has its own long story which we’ll tell you some other day. Oh, what the heck, we’ll tell you now: A company called Stoddard Imported Cars Inc. was founded in 1957 by Charles A. Stoddard, an MIT engineering graduate who had been working for the precursor to TRW. The new business was called Stoddard Imported Cars and operated out of what was at one time going to be a Tucker dealership in Willoughby, Ohio. Stoddard had a magnificent selection of new car dealerships, importing just about everything fast, fun, and foreign—from Messerschmidt to MG to Morris and Mini. It had franchises (such as existed in 1957) for Alfa Romeo, Porsche, and Lancia, too. They did service, sales, and parts. Yes, parts.

Then, “In 1974 Chuck Stoddard made a significant decision, which was of everlasting importance to his business and to many Porsche enthusiasts, which was to purchase all the available 356 parts from around the world and to expand his market via mail-order to the entire United States, followed by Europe, and finally expanding worldwide,” reads the “About Us” section of the Stoddard website.

The business evolved, Penske bought the Porsche Audi dealership, yadda, yadda, yadda and now Stoddard is still a major powerhouse in the Porsche parts business, including its annual winter Lit Fair at the LAX Hilton.

But the Lit Fair is only one day, in this case last Saturday, Feb. 25. To really immerse yourself in all things Porsche parts, you want to get outside of the fair and visit some of the 16 parts shops and private collections, and take a show tour offered by the Lit Fair organizers. This year those ran from Thursday to Sunday and went to 16 different shops and collections all over Southern California. For $80 a day you got bus fare and whatever pizza and donuts were offered by the proprietors of said shops, from the Beverly Hills Car Club and Redline Weber Carburetors on Thursday to Goritz SIXFIX and Performance Vintage in Costa Mesa Saturday. On Sunday they even went out to The Boys Republic in Chino for the 356 Club’s Swap Meet

It was a Porsche paradise.

I managed to get to three Porsche tours during that time, each with its own character and automotive ambiance.

Auto Kennel

First was Auto Kennel in Costa Mesa, a small operation that specializes in curated car sales. It was a small, L-shaped shop packed with Porsches, and a few other cars.

“We only sell cars on consignment,” said Ed Kramer, who, along with his son, Paul, runs Auto Kennel. “We don’t buy them. We don’t flip them. We don’t repair them. We just take good cars. If they’re not good, we give them back. We refuse about half the cars that people try to get us to sell. And as a result, we have a good customer base. They follow us, they buy the cars, they bring them back when they’re tired of them, and we sell them again. About 70% of our cars go to people who’ve never seen them in person.”

How do the Kramers know a good car? By how it feels to drive it.

“We had a car that I drove last week,” said Paul Kramer, the son. “If the client will let me, I’ll do a longer test drive and go up to (the Good Vibrations) Breakfast Club (on Angeles Crest Highway) and do the mountain drive, which is great, because I get traffic, highway, mountain routes, and the car drove fine on the freeway but on the turns it just was not right. It was a late-model C4 S, like 15-year-old, 10-year-old. And so I started really digging into it and talking to the mechanics, and it turned out it had been hit really hard in the rear.”

They did not wind up offering that one to customers, but sent it back to its owner instead. If you want a good 911, there’s an email that goes out every morning at 6 am PST listing everything they have for sale. www.autokennel.com