History Let's go shopping at JC Whitney! in 1958

I think most of us old-timers wore out the pages of these catalogs.
I wrote to JC Whitney in 1977,offering to buy any of the old stuff they had buried in the back of their warehouse,especially the custom stuff. They wrote back that all of it was gone.
Probably a good thing,I didn't have the money to follow through anyway.. Thanks for posting .

 

More, More!! Wish I had a time machine.

 

VERY cool. Thanks for posting that, I LOVE period catalogs.Aftermarket chrome 15" long-bar lancers in 1958, in writing. Good stuff.

 

And if you bought 1 manifold splitting flange in 58 you got a new catalog at least twice a year for the entire 60s. decade. Later they had special multi-page sections for the Model As and then the VWs and Jeeps.

 

Great thread Jim! Keep em coming!

 

I would love to have one of those"No club-Lone wolf" jackets that they sold for years!
JC Whitney will be around forever!

 

Only $67.50 for a 53 Chevy grill?!?! I'm getting two!

 

Grab me some belair bloomers would you? I'll pay you the $12:50 later...

 

I designed my first car a thousand times using that catalog when I was 11 or 12.
And I didn't even have a car.

 

Wow....the JC Whitney catalog was worth HOURS and HOURS of entertainment for me back in the 70's.

I used to love the Model A section they had in the back.

That was back when you could buy something from them and it would typically be of pretty good quality.

 

Mandatory reading material when I entered HighSchool, graduated in '58, still order from JC occasionally.

 

Jim...Loved the journey, I think I have some JC Whitney catalogs in the office boxes under my Hot Rod Magazine collection...good idea revisiting them.

BTW, I think Kanter bought out JC Whitney, the Kanters were Johnny-on-the-spot at Tax Time a few years back! (nobody else had 406 rings...thank the gods of foresight...)

 

You'd think everyone needed a Connie Kit back then....

 

I turn 31 this year and I remember being 14 and going through the catalog page by page circling things I wanted so I could build my '52 Ford. I love those catalogs!!

That and my PAW catalog got well worn out daydreaming about things I wanted out of them

 

I always loved the "before and after" drawings, and of course, winky the cat. Later, they had motorcyle, VW, jeep, and import catalogs too.

 

In the 70's I thought that all of the JC Whitney stuff was crap! Wish I had a garage full of it now About ten years ago I called them for rear leaf springs for my 64. They were about half what everyone else wanted so I rolled the dice. They fit perfect. What a deal!

 

Now we're getting into the "dark side" of the catalog....this is some of the crap that gave them a rep for selling garbage.

 

I bought some rebabbited rods, adjustable tappets and lots of other stuff from J.C. Whitney when I rebuilt my Model A banger in '68. My only complaint was the "mechanical shock absorbers" were pretty much low-grade stamped steel and broke the first week I had them on the coupe. Otherwise, J.C. Whitney was great - and about the only source I knew of for Model A parts back then.

 

lots of parts back then...much more than now.

I bought a mechanical distributor advance that mounted under the dash of my 57 Dodge Coronet with a 325. It hooked up to the distributor housing and you could adjust the timing "on the go". Don't know if it actually helped much as far as mileage goes, but it sure made the engine sound tough.

 

Dig those "Night-Glo" club plaques!

 

More club plaques...big business back then? And who doesn't need a Turbo-X on their car to make it run like the big guys. But the Hudson engines are the best... surplus?

 

During the early 1972s I worked for Antique Auto House in Loveland, CO and we had a 1935 Lincoln K that belonged to Roy Washawski. What I remember the most is coming to work in the morning (several times) and John (the owner) saying that Roy and a few of his friends flew in to Loveland airport at about 3 AM to look at his car. Something about the guy never slept. I really didn't want to meet him bad enough to come in to work at that hour. The automobile was stunning. Roy sourced all the parts right down to the Connoly hides for the interior which the smell drove me crazy for about three months.
Regards
Greg Hornbostel

 

When I was 16 in 58 I bought several items from Warshawsky,which was in the same building as Whitney.I discovered this fact when I went to Chicago and visited the store.Catalogs were almost identical...strange way of doing business.It has worked for Whitney ,they are still in business.

 

dig those Hudson motors, complete with wires, filters, fan belt, etc.....one even have dual carbs.

 

This turned in to a cool thread. Thanks for cranking it up!

 

More exciting "new and hot" items...mostly crap, like you'd find at JC & Co. sometimes

 

I was there many times in the late '60's. Lots of racial unrest at the time, and their shop was right next to a huge housing project. Not a great place for a skinny white kid to be!

Up into the late '60's there was still a Model T/Model A section in the catalog, and they had brand-new Model T fenders, OEM, for under a hundred bucks as I recall.

 

those "Nutmaster" wrenches on page 28 are interesting in that some more recent designs of well-known brands are touted as "NEW!"; they look to be the very same thing.

 

We're getting to the index, so you can see what's in store over the next 292 pages. You can also see the pages as I scan them in at

http://www.selectric.org/jcw1958/

Anyways...back to the show....you used to be able to buy nice cast iron headers at the W.

 

Here ya go. My catalog isn't as old as Squirrel's but I did buy it back in 1966 and found it recently after all these years. Would love to be able to buy those louver sets today. I wonder if they were any good, probably Made in the USA back then.