From Sausage Casings to Houses, if it existed you could pretty well bet you could find it at Sears. The early 1900s catalogs are entertaining to look at.
I imported a car from the U.S. and it had "Allstates" -or something similar- whitewall tyres on it. Would they have been from one of those "catalogue" suppliers? They were good tyres from memory.
When I was in high school, I bought a set of seat covers for my 48 Ford coupe and had them installed. $15 for the front and back. 1958 in Tacoma WA.
In the early '70s, my cousin bought some Cragar wheels for his '63 Impala SS from Sears. Cragar called them G/Ts, but Sears called them Magsters.
I worked in shipping & recieving at Sears all through High School, I vividly remember when they had sales on tool sets I must have carried out 5000 sets during those three years, around The Thanksgiving holidays and Christmas, Tools & weights were big sellers, also I loaded up hundreds of boxes of clay piegons. We had a speed shop here in town and I seldom saw any speed parts come through shipping & handeling, tire and cases of oil were a regular thing. HRP
I was a tire changer at Sears Automotive in Hicksville, NY back in 1988, fresh out of high school. That shop had 60 bays, it was huge. I installed the very first set of non-Sears tire sold at that location and region. It was a BF Goodrich I believe. It was wrapped in a heavy orange plastic strap, woven around the circumference. That’s my humble (pathetic?) claim to fame. I also was the most trusted tire guy at the time and they had me do a set of tires on a 65 Corvette with a 427 4speed with the knock off spinner caps. The new tires rubbed on the fenders so I had to change them to a smaller size, not once but twice! The car left and everyone was happy. A month later it came back on a flatbed. One of the rear wheels popped off and ate the quarter panel. What a mess. Stores in our region were heavily involved with sales competition between other local stores. They selling coil springs and brake pads to every car and truck that came in the shop whether they needed it or not. Lots of people pulled out receipts to prove that stuff was recently done already. Some time after I left I saw them on the news, they got caught big time and lost a lot of their formerly loyal customers.
I worked at a J C Penny auto center in the late70s. We sold a lot of performance parts through that center. We sold more tires and custom wheels then the Custom Tire and Wheel store a few blocks away. Penny's auto parts were pretty much the same quality of parts you could buy any place else, they just had the Penny's logo on them. Penny's tools sucked though. There was a Sears auto center on the other end of the same shopping mall as the Penny's auto center I worked in. We were each other's competition, our center did better then the Sears auto center, but about a year and a half later, J C Penny closed all their auto centers.
In 1969 I converted my '65 Falcon from a C4 to a 3 speed full syncro top loader. I bought the Hurst shifter for it from Sears. The Sears Automotive centers were a different story. In the mid 60's a family friend had his wife's car in for a tire repair. The mechanic (who obviously worked on commission) asked him if it was his wife's car? When he replied it was the mechanic said he wouldn't let his wife drive a car with such bad shocks. When asked which shock(s) the reply was "all of them". To which our friend said well you better replace them all since I was here less than a month ago and had 4 lifetime guarantee shocks installed. So they must be defective. They had to replace 4 almost brand new perfectly good shocks. I would have loved to see the look on the mechanic's face.
I'm friendly with one of the residents in the municipality where I work. In 1969 he bought a Dodge Charger SE brand new. First place he stopped after leaving the dealership was to the JC Penney Auto Center at the King of Prussia Plaza (PA) and bought their brand of Cragar GT style mags. They are still on the car today. He told me that they had a nice selection of aftermarket items. John Wanamaker's and Korvette's also had auto centers at the Plaza. Sears Auto Center didn't come along until the original late 80's expansion. By then JCP and Wanamakers auto centers were closed. Korvette's Auto Center became Bennigans, now it's Seasons 52 (in the original auto center building). Does anyone know if Wanamakers or Korvettes sold speed parts back in the day?
Note that most of the available sizes of slicks in the original post are for 14" wheels, which people seem to be allergic to now. I know my dad bought some mag wheels from Prange Way when he bought his first car right out of high school. They apparently carried Mickey Thompson branded stuff there, too.
I did some research and ended up exchanging PM’s with @Pete Eastwood about this Sears motorcycle … Powered by a 9 hp V Twin Spackle, it could easily cruise at 50 mph + and stop (hopefully), you started it by turning the motorcycle pedals. 1913 Sears Motorcycle Jim
My first car (72 Chevelle SS) had a set of those 15" A/FX aluminum slots on it when I bought it in '77. The JCP local to me had a chassis dyno in it (Crossroads mall, Waterloo IA)
The Jalopy Journal
