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

Bailey,s Perfomance Center in Odessa Texas . worked there in the mid 70,s it was a real good speed shop. every one that worked there had a hot rod ,i had a 57 nomad and a 69 camaro.

 

Ah, yes, good old Tri-City buggy. Still have one of their decals on a shop cabinet.

 

Stereo-Pak in Maderia, Ohio, hellofa name for a speed shop...But I did win A stock at the old time drag nationals 1st year East Gate Classics did...MAN that was a long time ago...83 or 84....

Brother worked there in the 80's, Glenn and Norm had the Lick'em and Stick'em back in the day...

 

Reath Automotive in Long Beach. First he was at 10th & Cherry. later he moved further up Cherry near the Airport. Joe was always good to me, when times were tough I would work for him and he would pay me under the table. Joe is not doing well, his health is failing.

 

Not specifically a "Speed Shop" but Scotty's Muffler in Berdoo was as close as it got around here at the time. Bought my first speed equipment there in 1965. It was a used Offy 8-ba two pot manifold. The price was 18 bucks and I only had 11. Luke who was behind the counter talked to Scotty, and since he knew my dad I got it for 11. I still have it.

 

A & A Speed Shop, Moosic PA

 

Back in the 60's in my teens I used to drive from Champaign,Illinois over to Danville to Fagen's for my fix.Found this Pic on Google images they are still alive and kickin" Wish I had a pair of the decals for my '54

 

We had a Hossie's Speed in Newport Beach 40's 50's. Wayne's in Costa Mesa 60's.
Santa Ana Speed {still there}. I used Super Shop for a tire store. Svc Ctr in
Orange. Of course Blair's, Reath were here also. I enjoyed the used equipt in the big
shops. Ollie Morris even had a shop in Costa Mesa. Most of the best Header shops
were from this area also.

 

It was Honest Charley's(later Honest Performance), Service Center and Super Shops in my informative years in the Great Northwest.

 

Blair's in Pasadena, CA. Used to go there and buy used stuff. One day I spit the driveline out of my car street racing and Don Blair kept the place open late to straighten if for me. RIP, Mr. Blair.

 

Another vote for Vic Hubbards in Hayward Calif.Thursday nights they were open late so the locals could come in after work or school and buy their
parts. It was usually busy so you took a number and killed some time by staring at all the car club plaques mounted on the walls.When it was your turn ,the parts guys were great and gave you all the time you needed!​

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Vic Hubbards was always a big supporter of local car shows and race events. The V/H logo was also seen on a lot of the top race cars at the old Fremont Drag Strip!​

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Awesome Ron! My first Auto Parts gig was Vic Hubbard when they had a Fremont Store for a while, I was 16. Heres a pic of the parts counter taken in late 1960 at the original Meekland Ave Hayward,Ca shop which is now their accounting dept. Right to left: Judie (Light) Forsberg; Jerry Light (owner); Bob Zarth; Jerry Forsberg; Chet Norris; Denny Forsberg; John Middleton; Bruce Carmen (in shades); and three customers

 

i'm a transplant to michigan..so i don't remember the old shops...i did venture to Ram chargers a few times before they closed..walked out every time hating some chump there,,,they thought it was the greatest...month later they closed...go figure.....


i grow up in cincy..on the west side...Edgewater raceway park...winston nats....the place for everything was dick's place...D & J Automotive...down on westwood northern blvd.....Granny Goose vette and camaro's burned up everything locally.....they built em from the ground up....Dick bought Edgewater later and his son Rick took over parts selling up on the newer harrison ave store,,,,bout 1/2 mile from mom's old horse farm....helped build an intake out of sheet tin for the ply arrow his other son set records in,,,,he screwed up with the nose candy and kilt his racing days..

then for the hardcore do-it-yourselfer's there was Swallens on Glenway ave....department store that had everything ya needed down it the basement...and i mean everything....my old girl freind, Maryanne , her brother worked there....

there was also a few who swore by APSI in cheviot....


bought an old 65 lemans out of ten years ago,,,,guy drove it one year then started to trophy race it fairly stock....it came to me with a 400 and a th400 trans...lived in the garage all it's life..had a plate on the front that said

THE HOTROD BARN.......forget if it was nashville or knockville...always wondered about that place....

 

We had two, J&F Speed Shop and Mother's both in Saddle Brook, NJ at the time. Later we had several Van Iderstein stores, all gone now.

 

I lived in a small town in north western Ohio in the late 60's without much for speed equipment. I got parts from Ray Smith in Eaton, had a killer motor built at Ault and James in Dayton and also got parts from the Rod Shop in Columbus. I knew a few guys that left our area to work at the Rod Shop back then.

 

In Boise Idaho in the 70's the main Speed Shop was Service City they had a
whole complex downtown boise . It was always a cool place to drive by and see
what was there . They later moved the parts store to Vista ave. but it bacame to
hard to compete with mail order .

 

Years 1967-72

SanBernardino Racing Equipment @ 25830 East Baseline, SanBernardino CA

Harry (Eberlin) was the owner / founder... and Mike (Cunnigham) was the fella that let me hang-out there on Wednesday's & Thursday's reading the latest issues of Drag News and National Dragster.

(this 1st small store grew into the Super Shops chain)
(Mike Sullivan A/FA & Dave Hough 'Nanook' we're sponsored by SBRE)
(san bernardino ; san berdoo)

 

I worked at store number one, in the early 90's.. right before I went to work for Ford. Steve 'Flash' Maxfield, was my boss. Steve now, works at J&M Speed Center, in Riverside, Ca. I also worked with Jaime, who now works for Dougs Headers.

Nanook took on the brown paint scheme, once the Super Shops sponsorship started. Dad & uncle didn't have anything to do with it, then. Here's some renderings Bob Thompson drew up for them to go by, on this version

 

Al's Speed Shop, Aurora Ill. Al Thompson had the fastest Nitro burners and everything in between, racing out of his shop.....

 

This is cool! I always liked Nanook in the flames / colors (your photo & mine). You probably knew Steve Whipple? Another good friend's son worked at Super Shops Spokane (WA store) - Brad Schmidt... did you know ever meet Brad? btw - phil braybrook (j&m speed) was a hell of a nice guy also. may he r.i.p.!

 

The shop that I remember most was Steve Kanuika's Speed Shop. He has since just passed away but was a genuine great guy.

 

Truthfully, you meet so many people.. it's hard to recall. I was fortunate enough to meet Phil Braybrook before he passed. He gave me a personal tour of the back part of the shop. I always thought that was cool.

 

Wise Speed Shop and 1st Perfomance. Both were on Hampton Ave. They were 2 blocks apart. My dad was friends with both owners so i got killer deals. Matt Johnson was good also when they were next to Taylors Junks Yard on St. Charles Rock RD.

 

"Jew & Screw"??? What is that in reference to? You seem to be all over the map with your post. Are you saying J&S were high priced?

Couple of points here, first, a guy of your vast automotive aftermarket knowledge relied on the guy behind the "speed shop" counter of Super Shops for advice on what go-fast parts to purchase? Yikes, that in itself is scary.

Not here to defend anybody but I have to tell you that Harry was a double-edged sword (good and bad in terms of overall impact) in the high-performance parts world, laugh and joke all you want about some of the guys that manned the counter (Steve Whipple didn't do so bad VP Edelbrock plus guys such as Bob Mendelhall and Flash seemed to know what they were doing, many others were sharp) however the place sold a lot of product that would never had been sold otherwise. Consumers saved money, lots of money, if you had checked Blairs or anywhere else on price at the time you'd know that.

Big items sold over-the-counter for jobber or less, if you needed an 1850 Holley or a set of inexpensive headers, countless other parts and pieces, no place sold them for anything near that. Smart customers would purchase these types of items at true wholesale cost. Never mind the add-on sales, they didn't need to be bought there.

High-performance was NEVER cheap before Harry got into the business, some got as high as list price and "Racer's Net" was the norm.

On any crowded Wed night on Van Nuys Blvd. or other popular cruise spots BITD of street machines there's no question a ton of those cars had parts on it from SS. That was not a bad thing, it was a way to get car enthusiasts involved for cheap.

Regarding BFG rubber, the streets of all the cities where the at one time 160+ stores were located were filled with cars and trucks shod with BFGs purchased from SS, and I in fact would strongly suspect the parent company Michelin sold far fewer BFG Radial T/A type tires in America after the situation happened. (Situation is a long story.) Harry put companies like Centerline and BFG and numerous others in the limelight during their heyday. Suppliers such as Hedman chose not to sell their line there because of the heavily discounted pricing, but loads of others did willingly.

Case in point during the J&S speed shop era, SS was basically like a CostCo for speed lovers, pricing and availability. Show me some vendors that are not trying to get into CostCo, perhaps in 20 years they will be out of business and we can look back and say how we hated their low prices.

If you liked paying high prices for speed equipment and performance tires, you were smart to stay away from Harry's stores. Regarding Mallory, BRC and Erson, those lines were also sold at very good price points for the consumer, not sure what you're complaining about there. Maybe Sig should not have sold his company? Mallory products were the best in the business, not sure how SS ownership caused any drama for customers.

Did people get burned at the end? Absolutely. I'm not here to defend anyone, only to comment on the (besides Jew & Screw) remarks you shared about your not enjoying low prices. If you hate low prices, by all means don't deal with Jeg's or Summit as a customer. You may do so already as you're in the industry, selling parts of course.

 

Yup, another tip of the hat to Jake's.

Bob

 

Rapid City, SD, late 60's. Martin's and Carl Satterlee's.

 

Champion Speed Shop, So. San Francisco California, home of Andy's Instant T.

 

The Hot Rod Shop on Grand River in Detroit. One of the guys at school worked there and we kind of had an "in" at the place. For a 16yr old it was like going to Mecca. Long gone since the 60's.

 

Eddie's Speed Shop-Fresno in the 60's, Vic Hubbard's in Hayward in same time frame -spent a fair amt of money at both

 

Gratiot Auto Supply. Later had my own and was a jobber for Gratiot.