What was the Speed Shop that said it all for you?

Top Auto in Tacoma in the late 50's

 

BOB'S SPEED SHOP Mobile,Alabama Since 1965 still going , Bob still there, 81 Years young, opens up 6 days a week!!

 

central jersey, pca

 

Lou Snyder's Lou's Speed Shop in Toledo, Ohio
Also in Toledo - Dick Tittsworth's Seaport Automotive

 

Blair's in Pasadena.

 

Pacemaker Automotive, Saskatoon Saskatchewan

 

California Speed & Sport
New Brunswick, NJ

 

Eastern speed ... Camden, NJ. Was THEE one late 50's very early 60's ........

 

Ft. Lauderdale in the 70's - Horsepower Sales, and Oakland Park Auto.

 

Today it's hard to get the same excitement from a parts website as compared with stuff hanging on the wall and being to look at and touch. Even Sears and JCPenney had some speed equipment on their shelves in the early days.

 

There were several : Hank's in Berwyn, PA/ later on K&G SpeedShop in Phila. / later on Rundle's in Tempe, AZ / later on Norm Rapps in S.F. & Bailey Brothers in Vallejo.

 

thats good to hear, so so many places have vanished but yours is still here,i like that stuff.

 

When I was young it was Langhorne Speed Shop and Trenton Speed Shop,then K&J,Ben Pilla,Shaws,Dunn&Crosso,and now for the last 20yrs or so it has been K&M .

 

Smith Auto on Lake Street!

 

In my rural home here in the South there wasn't any big name Speed Shops down on the corner but Gene Cromer & his small shop was a inspiration to me.. HRP

 

Ramcharger's in Waterford.
I was young and didn't know what any of it was, But I wanted to know what it all was.

 

I was wrong on the age...Bob will turn 82 this year. We meet every Friday at 11:00 and eat lunch at our local Dreamland BBQ .......been doing it for years.

 

C & W Pomona calif

 

Hall's Speed Shop. Wichita, Kansas. Birthplace of 'The Smokers Car Club of Kansas' and 'The Southern Kansas Timing Association'. Was "the place" for me in the late 50's, early 60's. Shop is still open for business at the the same location today.

 

CamCo. Weymouth, Mass.

 

Halls speed shop in Wichita Ks been there in the same building cense 1948.

 

In Portland, Or. it was Radke's. Still in business, but the internet has taken a serious toll on brick and mortar stores, so they're not as big as they used to be.

 

When I was in my early teens until I got out of school in '61 the closest thing we had to a speed shop in Muskegon was Economy Automotive on the main drag downtown. You could get glass packs, cut-outs, curb feelers, porterwalls, etc - all of the J.C. Whitney/Warshawsky stuff. They also had regular car parts. I think it died in the early 60's as chrome wheels and mags became available at Sears, Firestone and JC Penneys. Discovered mail order along about Gratiot Auto in Detroit and others.

But Economy Automotive has a place in my heart as I remember the days when I discovered and read the Henry Gregor Felson books and started to notice the cars that the older guys had.

All downhill from there as some would say.

 

Barker's Custom & Dock Eddleman's Garage in Kannapolis N.C. in the 1950's. Nothing like them since and of coarse my parents didn't like them......................

 

Wow, no San Antonio folks in here yet...... Let's see - first and foremost...Speed & Sport on south Laredo st,. Jody Smarts Bug-e-wharehouse
Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!

 

Super Shops and the Service Center Speed Shop Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks, Ca. in the late 70's-early 80's.

 

J&S in Westminster, SA Speed in Santa Banana, but one as well I haven't seen here- Johnny's Speed and Chrome under the pit stands at OCIR. You could go in there on a race night and pick up used speed parts that were still warm, which I did in 1969. They had another location on Screetch Blvd in Buena Park that had a lot of VW stuff.

J&S later moved a few doors over and became Rick's when J&S moved to HB and became a gear shop. I got my last Super T-10 from Roy over at J&S Gear. It's owned by some Aussies now. I think Roy moved to Oregon. Rick's is gone for good.

Bell Auto Parts moved into HB in the later 70s but were in an off-location industrial park.

Reath... what a great guy. He was always patient and genuinely cared about his customers. When he found out that
I rode my bicycle from HB to LB just to buy a tapered ring compressor for a 402 (not popular size bore) that nobody else had, he gave it to me for a couple of bucks. You know, cars sure can suck up your money, I was broke and needed to pop the slugs into my rat just to have something to drive. Joe Reath liked the idea of me refusing to buy a Toyota when I could stick the tunnel-ram BBC back into my car. He always treated me like I was a millionaire and I pedaled away with my ring compressor and enough dough left for lunch on the way home. Still have the compressor. Long live Lions Drag Strip !

I was the sr. engine builder for Louis Unser's dyno shop in the late 70s and bought things from Mike Kuhl who was (still is I think) a couple of shops over from us. Joe Sherman has a shop in the same complex.

 

Back east for me was Honest Charley!

 

Radkes ,Exhaust Specialtys Portland Oregon

 

Moto- Cycle Spares