Well…. JC Whitney is still in business today with a big building right off the interstate but it’s a newer modern parts and aftermarket accessories merged into Carparts.com Yes, JC Whitney is still in business, but it no longer operates as a standalone mail-order catalog company. It was acquired by CarParts.com in 2010 and merged into their operations, serving as a dedicated brand hub for auto parts, accessories, and performance gear. Key Details About Today’s JC Whitney: Online Presence: The brand lives on through the JC Whitney Performance Parts and Accessories Hub on CarParts.com. Focus: It still focuses on aftermarket parts, restoration, tools, and accessories, particularly for trucks, Jeeps, and cl***ic cars. Evolution: While the famous paper catalog is largely gone, the brand has transformed into a lifestyle brand with digital content, merchandise, and a continuing legacy that started in 1915. Essentially, the brand was absorbed into a modern e-commerce platform to keep the name and its focus on DIY auto parts alive.
I picked up an early 1960s JC Whitney catalog at a swap meet a few years ago, it's as entertaining today as it was back then. When I was a kid and didn't know anything, I'd page through it and see the different bolt on devices that would add 10hp or 20hp or more, so I figured if you bought them all you could just add up the horsepower numbers together and gain a couple hundred horsepower. Years later after I'd grew up I had a '61 Bonneville convertible, and I bought the replacement top for it from JC Whitney. It was a good quality product.
That's exactly what happened to one of my friends. He ordered around $10.00 worth of junk, and ended up getting a large box with a dual quad cross ram intake manifold for a small block Chevrolet in it.
In 1970 JC Whitney made me a certified MM.....bought a 450 piece 'Master Mechanics" tool set mail ordered to my door (did you hear that Amazon)....the hand tools were mostly Husky brand and everything was USA made. I still have the metal tool box it all came in along with the hand tools....I think that 100 if the pieces were hacksaw and utility knife blades....gets the piece count up fast.... All the anti rattle window strips in my 'grandads '39 Chevy' came from JC Whitney....I'll have to go digging for their catalogue...thanks for the memories
I'll join in with all those who well remember JC Whitney from back in the day. Although I don't have an old JC Whitney catalog to step back in time, I do still page through my Speedway Motors catalog on a regular basis. I haven't ordered anything from them for quite a while so the catalog I have in the "reading room" is from 2022. Even though I know the prices are way off from current prices I still flip through it looking at the parts that I would possibly use on a project in my head that will likely never come to fruition. It doesn't hurt to dream. Lynn
Dad bought his Model A stuff from JC... buy one piece and get catalogs for the rest of your life! They got really thin in the waning days... I remember Volkswagen, Model A and T, foreign cars and antique cars having separate sections for the longest time. Jeeps and dune buggies, too. A fella could learn a lot searching through them. Between the Whitney book and Dixie Gun Works and The Sears and Roebuck catalogs....
While you're looking thru your old JC Whitney catalogs some day, flip to the pages that have the horns, bells and especially the Hollywood Wolf Whistles. Find the ad and the artwork with the cartoon wolf illustrating the sound the whistle made, and scan or take a photo of it and post it here. I want to make sure it made a "Yip, Ki-Yi, Woo-Woo" noise!
In 1968 I bought a 1929 standard coupe Model A. I ordered babbitted rods, adjustable tappets, rings, friction shocks, water pump packing, a ring and pinion with seals and bearings, all kinds of other stuff from J.C. Whitney. I rebuilt the engine and had a place in downtown Kansas City repair a crack in the block's water jacket and re-babbit the mains. Tires and muffler/exhaust pipe came from Sears or Wards. It all came together successfully and I drove the snot out of that car for a year during college. Friction shocks were worthless - broke within days of installation - but everything else was well worth the money. Great memories.
I always remember the catalog, but more remember going in person one time when I was a kid. Seems like it was in a pretty rough part of Chicago if I remember right.
Sadly, nothing stays the same. They were bought out for E-commerce sales. All you have to do is look up the Carparts.com website and it shows how many companies are under that umbrella. JC Whitney is the first link but all the “old” stuff is gone. I used to get the JC Whitney catalog in the mail all the time or if I was at a big box store that had a magazine rack, I used to pick one up. But all of the print is pretty much gone by way of the Internet. “ Speedway” still print a catalogue that I get occasionally which I read and circle if there’s something that I need to order. So now, if you want to go in and sit on the throne and read, instead of the catalog, you have to bring your laptop or phone in and read….. You are right, flipping the pages was easier than… I worked in corporate distribution for 50 years and 30 years ago 90% of sales was through a multi thousand page catalog. As e-commerce came about that percentage decreased from the catalog to e-commerce. Now after 30 years later 98% of sales for The corporation is E-commerce sales within the remaining 2% with printed sales flyers that used to be in the box when you ordered something or occasionally by mail. Hell, people don’t even go shopping in person anymore and order on line to have it delivered. My pet peeve now is if I go to Walmart or big supermarkets, I have to battle the store personnel pushing around their big blue carts taking up aisle space filling orders for other people, plus if you both meet at a corner customer courtesy goes out the window and they feel they have the right away. Broad brush but happens more times than not. Corporate America needs to sit their teams down and explain that in store customers have the right of way. I have been told recently that I should become a corporate trainer on customer service. How to handle customers. Many occasions I’ve had my clients say they expect on my gravestone at the bottom that I’m going to put, “Thank you for your business.” When’s the last time you heard that ? People are too use to not having customer service. Hopefully that’s not for another 30 years down the road, my tombstone. Got that off my chest. Sorry for drifting, back to cars.
I spent a lot of time as a yout laying on the floor drooling on the JC Whitney catalog! And Sears. Instant engine overhaul, Wolverine 3/4 cams, 2 carb intakes...
After spending some time on the H.A.M.B. yesterday and taking a few minutes viewing this thread, I continued on my internet foray. I ended up on eBay, browsing the many things available there. When I looked back, it seems that things really haven't changed much over the last 70 years. The medium may be different, but the process is the same.
Like everyone here, I lived out of the Whitney and Sears catalogs. High profile purchase made from Whitney; Holley 3bbl carb and Whitney brand 3/4 race cam for my 331 hemi in my Willys. Still running both after 60 or so years. If you wonder why I chose that cam, well it sounded pretty trick to an 18 yr old with several years of Rod and Custom, Hot Rod engine building edumacation! Same with the 3bbl but I did machine some inserts for the primaries the size of 380 Holley making it a homemade spread-bore. That with strong secondary a spring made a pretty responsive carb. And about Sears. If you think about it, they perfected the Amazon business model. Offer everything known to man by fast mail order. They lost out to Amazon and the rest is history, by deciding to concentrate on brick and mortar stores instead of beefing up mail order. Reminiscent of Xerox who hired a bunch of nerds to develop the personal computer. They delivered, with the CRT, DOS op system, laser printer, mouse, GUI, the whole shebang. Management looked at it and decided it wasn't going anywhere so sold off all the tech to IBM, HP, Bill Gates, etc., and decided the future was in the paper office.
The smell!!! A newly arrived JC Whitney catalog had a distinctive "printing ink" smell that I remember to this day. It smelled like anticipation...anticipation that the next page would be more exciting than the last. The old "brown cover" Hemmings had a similar smell, but just not the same.
I do not think I ever bought anything from JC Whitney. Locally we headed to the GI Joes (2 initials and a name so kinda the same thing). Cheap *** auto accessories! I loved that place. Bought my first pair of chrome grilled, Craco speakers and 8 track deck with anti-theft, slide out bracket there. First tape was Blue Oyster Cult, Don't Fear The Reaper. I also recall buying a red digital display clock that was starship Enterprise **** and an intermittent wiper delay! Flying cars were on the horizon!
50s n 60s,J.C.Whitney one of my places to find a types of trick stuff. Both speedparts an crazy parts. I enjoyed getting new ones. It seemed like JCW would send out so many new Catalogs,I thought it mush cost them more $ then sent them for parts I payed for... There was stack of JCW Cat. in the corner pretty close to 3 feet high..They got trashed,when I moved out of my Mom's house...in 64
True story: in 1989 I was stationed in England and turned my pent up car lust toward a 78 Jag XJ-6 (slammed, blacked out, shaved, etc). I wanted a dual exhaust with turbo mufflers. But I wanted stock appearing tailpipes so searched for off the shelf bits locally. Available, yes, but BIG BUCKS! JC Whitney had them available for a fraction of the price and shipping to my military APO address was a pittance. When they showed up they fit perfectly and had the sticker “made in England” affixed.
Too funny. I got an 8 track and 2 slide-out anti-theft devices for my girlfriend's Vega. With the other slide-out, I built a little cabinet with an inverter so she could slide-in the 8 track and use it in the house. (Allman Bros. Eat a Peach for her)
Can't say that this is true but at lunch in H.S. this guy told me, that his buddy placed an order for a conversion kit. To get rid of that slow automatic trans and have gear shift. The guy was shipped a 50 gallon drum containing a 3 speed trans, bell housing, clutch, flywheel, steering column, and housing with shift column, shift handle, pedal, linkages to hook to the trans, and about a quart of gear oil at the bottom.
1964, I was 16, my hot rod shop was the junkyard and the Jc Whitney catalog. I bought baby moons there, seat covers, portawalls, my first set of chrome reverse wheels and other items. I had a local auto parts store that I purchased items from, the owner was a stock car racer, his employee was a drag race man, helpful and knowledgeable men. I found Speedway Motors in 66/67, purchased a fibergl*** T body with molded on short PU box and no door. I purchased items from them all through the years. I have never seen another catalog with the diversity of the JC Whitney.
Reading this thread brought back memories. I wanted a CJ2 or 3A in the worst way as a kid. Dad received the JCW catalogs. I would look them over from front to back, and spend a lot of time studying the Jeep parts. Now I have one, but is a project of sorts. Who remembers the “triple chrome plated” parts?
I wrote a long letter to JC Whitney in 1977, with a big list of stuff I wanted to buy (I finally had a little money) that was the cool stuff from the 60s catalogs I had saved. They actually wrote me back, and said they no longer had any of it. I was crushed. Getting my driver's license in 1968, and by then had already owned a 61 Corvair (POS), a 55 Chevy 2 door post (wrecked by me one week after I got my driver's license), and was by then driving a '65 Fairlane that I thought was hot stuff. One of the newest cars in the high school parking lot! The neighbor across the street ran a finance company, and it was a repo with high mileage salesman's car, but it was a 2 door hardtop with a 289 auto. 5 years later the student's cars at that high school were Roadrunners, GTOs, Chevelles, all kind of cool late model stuff, but in '68, my Fairlane was cool. Western Auto and JC Whitney and gas, cigarettes, and sometimes when I got lucky, beer got ALL my money from my part time jobs. Good memories. I think the students at my old high school have driven better cars than the teachers since the 70s.
J. C. Whitney was my go to source for most automotive products in the early 1960s. I grew up in very rural far Northern California. So they were the most accessible parts source.
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