I bought two E24's earlier this year and then the E24 turbo. Parting out the cars to get the money back has been a pain in the arse. While you don't need all the parts, you kinda feel obliged to remove them LOL and also hope to offset the build cost of the target car... in my case my E9. The reality is that I would rather not add up the time invested for this process because so far I have blown the whole spring and summer (besides my day job) parting out the two E24s and the crashed E9. In retrospect I should have rather just bought the stuff.
I think there are two factors working against you. Although these are euro cars, you are dealing with a more competitive marketplace for the plain old e24 parts. They are plentiful and cheap. Euro bumpers are hard to find. There are definitely way more grey market e23's and e24's than e28's though.
The second factor is the demographic. E24's are cheap, and attractive to a younger more financially strapped crowd. When most e9 members need (or want) something, they just buy it. There is no saving up, no trading, no tire kicking. Not to paint a
broad brush across all members, but in general when you combine the rarity of parts and the member population, things work it out to be easier for sellers. I'm sure others have witnessed the same situation when selling Porsche parts.
