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 cir***ference. 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 compe***ion 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 ****ed 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 compe***ion, 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 ch***is dyno in it (Crossroads mall, Waterloo IA)
Hello, Wow, Mickey Thompson Slicks at Sears. By the time this happened, Mickey Thompson was already in the old Joe Malliard Speed Shop location, moved to another around the block larger building and ended up next door to our favorite Italian Foods Grocery Store/take out sandwiches place in the Westside of Long Beach. That last shop for Mickey Thompson was a place to get stuff we needed when it was available. Plus the convenience of being a few blocks from our last house was excellent. A short drive to the shop. The final location was on the main street, Santa Fe Avenue. But, as most communities go, there were two Sears Roebuck Stores close by in downtown Long Beach and nearby Downey, when we needed more tools. Sears was the only place that sold Craftsman Tools in huge quan***ies. The auto parts section of the old stores was a huge place and had lots of variety in parts. Mostly our local auto parts store down our own neighborhood street took care of most of the common auto parts for our hot rods. Jnaki Since Sears was the only place selling Craftsman Tools, we did frequent the closest store in downtown Long Beach and if we were in Bixby Knolls at my friend’s house, the Lakewood store was closer to him. We all know about the guarantee of the tools, but the store did have other parts, too. Our speed shops in Bixby Knolls and in our Westside of Long Beach neighborhoods kept us as customers and as the years wore on, only Craftsman Tools or free replacements were done at Sears. One time, two screwdrivers were taken to the OC Sears store after we had moved in 1977. The tool was 17 years old. It had been one of our most used tools. The other one was about 10 years old and was in almost the same condition. So, I took them to the nearest Sears store and the sales person just walked over to the Craftsman tool section and took out the same two screwdrivers and gave them to me. YRMV (one had a chip out of the main blade and the other had worn ends of the similar blade, not straight)
I discovered back in the early 70's ( I was 14 ) that I could return Sears shocks we took off customer cars back to Sears and get refunded about 6 or 7 dollars each. That was a nice payday back in those times. That worked for several years as best I remember.
J.C. Penny offered a lifetime warranty battery for $100.00. This was when a regular battery cost around $35.00. Over my wife's objections I bought one and ran it for ten years. When it quit I took it back for a replacement but by that time Penny's was out of the auto parts business. Manager apologized said all he could do was refund the purchase price. Damn, I hated that but at least I got to use it 10 years for free. How come no one makes a similar quality battery today - at any price?
I remember living in CA next to some Air Force Base when my Pop was in the AF and going to a large Sears store where I first entered a building with AC, boy what a feeling. Later upon moving to NH, I bought a set of fender skirts for my 58 Chevy Impala back in 68 and the guy at Sears to me to go to Ben's Auto Body to get them painted for free.
I was hired into our local J C Penney Auto center about 2 years before they closed all the service centers. After my first year there, they were already back pedaling on that "lifetime" battery. We were told we could replace it one time for free, but the next one would be prorated by the age of the battery. At that time, their lifetime battery had a life expectancy of about 8-10 years, which at that time was about 3 years longer then the life of most car batteries, and at least 3x longer warranty then any other battery seller offered. All of the lifetime batteries we replaced were free, but we always told the customers about the change in the warranty, most customers were not happy, but it was what it was. Our center quit selling the lifetime batteries to new customers when the warranty changed. Once the auto center closed, any warranty on anything the center sold, didn't much matter.
"Sears also sold houses there's a Sears home next to the Bloomington Garage in California." I live in one! A 1939. I think '39 or 40 was the last year.
when I just started wrenching on things I filled up my toolbox using my Sears card and the catalog. buy a couple hundred worth of stuff, pay it off, repeat. I bought everything at Sears. clothes, TV, washing machine, I cut the card up 15 years later when they did not exchange my dead diehard battery.
The Jalopy Journal
