SUPER SHOPS! that was the first place i witnessed anybody being assaulted by a crane camshaft! guy had been sold incorrect camshaft and just wanted the correct one and manager attempted to escort him off of the property. as soon as he laid a hand on the dude bamm! got a broken collar bone for his efforts. weren't they the ones that went belly up owing edelbrock a ton of money. they were dicks!
they had a store in santa ana @1st & tustin, one of their employees came in early one morning , stole all the cash, shot and killed the other two employees for a few lousy bucks. never went back. bob m
Wasnt there one in Van Nuys offa Van Nuys Blvd near Sherman Way & Victory?? This brings back memories for me goin there with my dad, I think it was open till the mid 90's before it got shut down.
My dad a poster in the garage of a Super Shops fuel altered doing a burnout behind a girl not wearing very much. Could have caused my first woody?
I remember going down to the local one here in renton looking at some weldwheels for my 67 camaro and for a set of BFG tires. used to love the place.. Hope it survives
Even had 'em down in Florida. I built my stroker 351 with a lot of parts ordered from Super Shops. Like anywhere else, I had my favorite counter guys & guys I wouldn't trust to tell me which way to the pisser. They were around at least through '92 & early '93 because I used to drive by one in Montgomery going back & forth between Columbus, MS & Tallahassee, FL that year. Even went there to get a tire replaced when I had a sidewall tear on a lifetime BFG road hazard warranty.
Now that I think about it, Cole's dad, Pat Foster, drove the funny car. Not only that, but he won the division 7 championship in it when they still ran fuel cars at the division races. 1978 or 1979 if I had to guess. He also became a member of the 5 second club in the car.
yeah,,had to be at least early 90's before they closed as soemthing happened that i missed the winternationals/or was it world finals(memory is fading,but i think it was rained out..) and gave my tickets to my dad & lil bro when they had the races again eddie hill flipped his top fueler..
sorry, just thought this was a bit ironic..... DESOTO said: to me they earned the nickname "stupid shops" for a reason......they had some real winners behind the counter. Well ill tell ya OldTimer, Being that i was in the top 10 salesman list in the ENTIRE Super Shops chain for over 2 years till i became Manager of the Thousand Oaks California branch, The guys that worked there that Knew there shit felt the same way about Many of the Know It All customers that walked in the door. Stupid Shops was a Name hung on the guys after we sold the CUSTOMER what he asked for and it wasent the right parts for the application. CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT !! I cant tell ya how many 1850 Holley 600cfm carbs i sold to guys that KNEW that was the right carb for there SS 369 El Camino's & 429 Torinos, Or maybe the $89.99 Weiand manifolds for S/B chevys. Was a cool place to work & they paid O.K... that started almost 15 years of working as a parts counter person. Wonder how it will be this time ? I know what you meant, but it made me laugh,...out loud.
...doc... - thats splitting hairs man. i use to go to a northern Calif. Super Shops at the San Carlos/Belmont boarder (if i remember correctly). most, if not all of my questions were answered by Gotelli's Speed Shop in S. San Francisco. When Super Shops closed down my friend lifted their banner, its still has hanging in his garage.
We used to park in their lot on Friday and Saturday night and hang out or go next door to In-N-Out for burgers. The Fresno location closed down in '95 or '96.
Ahhhh the memories. Stupid Shops on Clairemont Mesa Blvd. in D'ago...1850 Holleys, satin Centerline pizza cutters and Thrush mufflers in 1988. Still got those rims in the attic. Cant GIVE 'em away...Bought my first set of M/T slicks there. They also had a shop up the road a bit in Escondido. Seriously, dudes behind the counter didn't know shit. Admittedly, I was wet behind the ears, but I knew enough to know these guys were ALL retards. I'd hit the real speed shop on Convoy for advice, and Super Shops for the purchase. I remember askin them (pre-internet) how the fuck they were gonna keep up with the cataloger's prices, and they started matching any catalog price. Then I found out they quietly had their own mail-order outfit (I think it was called "ASAP") but within a year or so, they were out of business. They usta have some amazingly obnoxious and loud radio commercials. They were like Guitar Center, but for the blister-pack bobby bolt-on "hot rod" crowd. I'm gonna hit'em up for sure just for old times. dvz
Crazy as I was just chattin the other day with a bud about Super Shops... odd. We in the Sacramento CA area are lucky, we still have a B&B 'go-fast' shop -you may have heard of it-- Tognotti's I used to buy from Super Shops...and yes they did have a bad rep... and I am not sure if they (the new guy) can over come it and how will they compete with Jegs and Summit! Crazy! Wish him luck...
What's wrong with those? I put one of them on my then wife's 72 350 Chevelle with a 600 AFB and duals from a 2bbl single - thing ran way better than it should, got excellent mileage too. Unless you were building a full tilt SBC, most of the guys behind the counter were clueless, especially about Olds or Ponchos... guy I went to college with quit to work there; sunk every dime he had into a 73 Ranchero - ended up dead from sucking nitrous.
When I got out of the Army I worked at this store also sometimes helped out at the Fremont store. Man that goes back a few years.
Ah, Stupid Shops. We had one in Phoenix and one in Mesa. The Phoenix one wasn't that bad, I knew the manager, a guy named Dean, and he was a good dude who only hired guys who could answer basic questions correctly. The Mesa store was a different story - smaller, tons of tires and Centerline wheels, one huge wall full of a crazy selection of red and blue A/N fittings and other crap that didn't move, hood scoops, ladder bars, tunnel rams for SBCs, and not a whole lot else. They had this goofy employee there named Rob, I think, and one day we were talking about this fantastic new B&M transmission fluid they just got in. (repackaged regular Dexron is all it was) He said he put it in his '77 Chevelle and it made all the difference in the world. In reality, he underfilled it by like three quarts, so that extra revving that he thought was all kinds of extra power was actually the TH350 slipping and cooking itself. Dipshit. But his big idea was to come up with an even better high performance trans fluid, with his own special additive that he read about somewhere, and he was going to market it himself and make millions, I tell you. He was going to call this new product Bull Shift. I'm not making this up. The main problem with Super Shops was that if you wanted something for your '71 Camaro with a 350, they probably had it, but if you needed anything for another kind of car, they never did. They completely bypassed the 5.0 Mustang craze, and never stocked a thing for those cars when they were the hottest thing going. But they always had stacks of Holley 600s and SBC Edelbrock Performers taking up floor space, and maybe a 289/302 Ford intake that dipshit Rob would tell you would also fit your 351W. The Phoenix store was leveled because it was on expensive property, and the Mesa store is now a Mexican wheel and tire joint. -KK
There was a pretty decent one, inventory and counter rep-wise, at Five Points in, I think, El Monte. Then there was a crap one, like many are describing, on Holt Blvd. in Ontario. The glory days for the independent, knowlegeable speed shops seemed to be from the mid-fifties to the mid-sixties, before the chains ate them up.I always made the trip out to Blair's, that was real heaven. Loved the piles of used stuff. You could retire on eBay if you had that inventory today. I think Blairs is still there, haven't been there in years.
I remember SS too. There was one on between 7th ave and Central on Camelback in Phoenix. The counter guys were always rude as hell, but I didn't give 2 shits. I hope they survive this time.
Me too, an Erson TQ-20H. Couldn't have been much further away from the specs I asked for, but hey, when you're 12........ Eventually you turn 14 and realize how stupid they really are. I honestly believe Stupid Shops was more responsible for pushing people to mail order than all other market forces combined. When you get ripped off by an independent speed vendor, you mark it up to one dishonest proprietor. When you constantly get ripped off by the largest, most professional chain in the biz- becomes plainly obvious that in lieu of customer service the only thing left to judge a vendor with is price. Mail order wins. The one in my area seemed to do more tire business than anything else. Hope the new guys can do better.
Super Shops still owe me $178.00!!! Paid cash for a steel Lakewood bellhousing at the Pittsburgh store in the early 90's and the wrong one came in. They had to reorder and in the meantime they declared bankruptcy and closed overnight. Went back 3-4 days later (not knowing they closed)and the store was empty except for some trash on the floor.
WOW, We used to have on here too. I remember back in the late '80's early 90's as well. They were in my neighborhood where I grew up, just a couple of blocks from home, and about 200 yards from the my dad's friend's place(Rex Fennel) Where he and I used to help restore Cars when dads shop was slow. I used to love going in there, there were a couple of really cool smart dudes in there, but all the counter help were useless, unless u were dealing with SBC stuff. If it were FORD or MOPAR they didn't know shit, and had to get one of the managers(which was who dad and I dealt with anyway) To answer questions. Ours actually had pretty good prices when they had what we wanted. I wish the new guy all the luck in the world, but he is going to have his plate full by customers who got shafted in the end when they closed up. Anyhow kinda cool to see an old name, maybe things will be different this go around.
Well what ever they do I hope they are open on Saturdays, thats my biggest reason for using mail order, I would love to support a local business but the one shop ( that I know of, but Im still kinda new in town ) that has race parts isnt open when I can get there. So It makes it too easy to just dial Summit insted. And just like most of you I remember the Super Shops I went to as a teenager, in Bakersfield CA , tiny brown building with every part I could dream of , ha ha good times.
Ok, there were some dumb asses on both sides of the counter, but I miss being able to stop by for little stuff like holley jets. (I could never afford much else there) I don't need to explain what happens when I ask about jets at the local chain store ...
We had one in the bustling Town of beaumont Texas. On Stagg drive. With driveway approach that rivaled ANY Evel Knievel ramp. Most of the counter guys werent too sharp. But they kept one or two that knew their stuff. Its still a tire shop today with the same crazy steep entrance....
there was one in woodlawn (northern cincinnati area) ...my first pair of pro street pro tracs (375's) came from up there.....used to stop there when i was delivering parts at my old job..... used to have the mallory display deal with the spark.....made you just want to jump into a unilite....brandon
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