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Folks Of Interest Your first visit to a Speed Shop

Discussion in 'The Hokey Ass Message Board' started by squirrel, Dec 4, 2021.

  1. Marty Strode
    Joined: Apr 28, 2011
    Posts: 8,796

    Marty Strode
    Member

    A buddy and I bought a Drag Action Cam for a Flathead, from Exhaust Specialties, the counter man was named Clair. Fast forward 35 years, I started hanging around with the old Hot Rodders and racers from the Portland area, I met a man named Clair Heaton. He was the same guy that sold us the cam, and was pretty famous in the 50's, with his channeled 33 coupe. I also got to know Dick Martin, who built up and owned the Exhaust Specialties/Distributor Warehouse fortune, and sponsored drag and Indy cars along the way. Chuck Tiller's Willys. Clair Heaton 1.jpg Chuck Tiller Willys.jpg
     
  2. DDDenny
    Joined: Feb 6, 2015
    Posts: 19,132

    DDDenny
    Member
    from oregon

    Thinking waaay back my friends' 66 Belvedere I S/S car was sponsored by Baxters.
    That was a factory 2x4/4 speed Hemi car and it ate parts regularly.
     
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  3. My first speed shop visit was Maryland High Performance (MHP) in Wheaton MD, They were owned by Sam Auxier Jr ( and from what I've read, Chick Dennino , who left to drive for Sox and Martin- I played Boys Club football with Chick's son, Keith).
    This was about 1973/4 ( I was about 14 yo). I visited MHP. because I had become infatuated with hot rods, watching my older brother and his buddy's work on their cars.
    I recall the MHP counter guys would give you decals if you weren't a pest, they also had a Hurst ram rod shifter set up as a demonstrator- playing with it too much , got you dirty looks from the staff. In the late 1970's , I had my own car ( see avatar) and spent my first money on speed parts at Douglas Speed and Sport in Silver Spring MD- great people, and great memory's.
    I could not find an image of MHP on line , but did find a picture of Sam Auxier's race car - "back in the day".
    And the store front of Douglas Speed.
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Dec 4, 2021
  4. partsdawg
    Joined: Feb 12, 2006
    Posts: 3,503

    partsdawg
    ALLIANCE MEMBER
    from Minnesota

    MAS in Minneapolis MN
     
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  5. juan motime
    Joined: Sep 14, 2017
    Posts: 79

    juan motime
    ALLIANCE MEMBER

    I don't remember the year, 1965-66, I was 15 or 16, there was the Parts Mart in Campbell, CA, and Goodies Speed shop in Willow Glen, CA. I don't think either is in business anymore. MAN!! That was a long time ago. I would go in and dream, a lot of dreaming.
     
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  6. Ah yes, Doug's. Old building, with a barber shop, hole-in-the-wall tavern, Doug's, and a taxidermist. Mecca for the local hot rodders.

    My first purchase? A set of valve springs for my near no-buck FE I was building in auto shop. I'd been 'gifted' a good used OEM 427 solid cam and while I didn't know much, I did know the stock hydraulic springs wouldn't be up to the task. Doug did me good, whatever he sold me worked great. He also sold me a set of aluminum spring retainers (hey, it was the '60s), said they'd be worth some more RPM. FE parts were expensive even then, the springs/retainers set me back about $40... LOL. Beat the hell out of that motor, never hurt it.

    The local machine shop was 'Bart's' in downtown Puyallup. Another hole-in-the-wall, he eventually moved to a parts house. Bart would help you out budget-wise. I'd gotten a set of light-weight solid lifters with the cam but they had just enough wear to make them questionable, plus nobody knew if they were for that cam or which lobes they'd been on if they were. Bart refaced the lifters for 50 cents each, told me 'No problem kid, they'll work fine now'. They did too.
     
  7. sunbeam
    Joined: Oct 22, 2010
    Posts: 6,213

    sunbeam
    Member

    Hall's speed shop Wichita started in 1948 still in the same building I was there a lot in the 60s
     
  8. Marty Strode
    Joined: Apr 28, 2011
    Posts: 8,796

    Marty Strode
    Member

    Doug's sponsored Rich Rogers AA/D, in 63, I remember.
     
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  9. I was probably 8 years old, Gene Cromers Speed Shop was just about a mile from our home and Gene and his wife Ruth were friends of my parents, Gene for some unknown reason would allow some of the neighborhood kids to stop by his shop when walking home from school.

    He was a local drag racing icon and I grew up I visited his shop many times seeking his advice and services, he never let his notoriety or his drag racing accomplishments interfere with his easy going manor.

    Even in retirement he never dreamed the community along with Quain Stott as the driving force in bringing back the Moonlighter and lighting that spark in Gene.

    With Gene's passing the Shop is now closed but many guys my age and younger learned a lot from Gene. HRP
     
  10. 210superair
    Joined: Jun 23, 2020
    Posts: 1,952

    210superair
    Member
    from Michigan

    We just call them auto parts stores. If we have any speed shops local, I don't know about um. Nothing that really specializes in hop up stuff. I feel left out....
     
  11. little red 50
    Joined: Feb 19, 2011
    Posts: 230

    little red 50
    Member

    Hall's speed shop for me too. Bought a lot of Rupp mini bike parts from them in the early 70's. Gene Hughes started working for Joe and George Hall back in the early 70's. He ended up buying it from them and still owns it. Gene is a encyclopedia when it comes to everything hotrod and car related. Halls speed shop was a model A garage before it became a speed shop supply. Gene was married to my cousin for about 14 years. Even though they divorced some time ago we still consider him a part of the family.
     
  12. Rich Rogers lived a few 'blocks' from us on South Hill. This was still 'country', but only a five-minute bike ride through the woods for me. He was the first real racer I ever met. The street he lived on went past his house then dead-ended at a last driveway with no houses in between. He'd test his digger's tune-up before a race every so often by towing it to the end of the road, then push-starting it and running it back to his driveway. That got the neighborhood's attention... particularly if he didn't pay attention to the time.... LOLOL. Then a developer cut a road in and built a bunch of houses much closer to him, it didn't fly so well after that. Panties got wadded, pets ran off, all sorts of mayhem... LOLOL. He still did it every once in a while, but now he'd check the tune, load the car and leave for wherever he was racing. By the time the cops got there, he was gone.... LOLOL . All of us kids thought he was the coolest dude we'd ever seen.
     
  13. klawockvet
    Joined: May 1, 2012
    Posts: 580

    klawockvet
    ALLIANCE MEMBER

    Good Grief, 71 posts and no one has mentioned Blairs in Pasadena! Where the hell have all the SoCal guys gone? I first went there in the mid fifties with an older neighbor and got a few things for a Model A but I became a regular in '58. Don was one of the nicest car guys I ever knew. I was a punk kid with no means of support but he would run a tab and I cant imagine anyone ever burning him. Those were the days.
     
  14. sshep
    Joined: Oct 13, 2018
    Posts: 257

    sshep
    ALLIANCE MEMBER

    Since I am a little younger I remember Performance Centers of America in East Brunswick, NJ in the 80's. It was at the end of my Grandmothers street on the corner of Wilmot and Rt.18. I loved to go visit her!:D I would go to the store with my Dad and stare at the wall of Cragar S/S wheels with Pro-Trac tires. White Blackjack headers and the more deluxe Silver Aluma-kote headers. Yellow Accel super stock plug wires. Crane Cams, Weiand Intakes, Lakewood traction or ladder bars. I still have my original Accel Super Coil on the shelf in the barn, Lol. Also down there was "Ask Frank First" in South River. He had every imaginable Chevy speed part you could want in his store. He carried new and used speed equipment and really helped me out with some great prices on used speed parts when I was just starting out.
     
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  15. Balljoint
    Joined: Dec 3, 2021
    Posts: 75

    Balljoint
    Member

    Raceland in Lincoln, NE, not sure what year it was, maybe the late 70's, but there was always a good inventory of used speed parts along with most of the new stuff back then. Clark owned and ran the place, he's still at it, working for Speedway Motors, but Raceland is long gone. The building had a huge mural on the side of it with an old dragster, pretty cool venue for a teenager just beginning to drive.
    I also had numerous PAW catalogs and still have a few, never made to their facility but I would pore over those catalogs like a kid before Christmas.
    In 2005 a buddy of mine and I decided to drive to Detroit for the Woodward dream cruise. He had a 1963 GMC shortbox with a healthy 383, TH350 trans, 3:73 gears and a dual exhaust with Flowmaster 40's. The truck had no carpet and my buddy had a booming voice, no A/C so we had to shout over the exhaust with open windows the whole way. We were on the road for 14 hours there and 14 hours back a few days later, that truck was loud enough my ears hurt for days afterwards. Anyhow, we got through Chicago on the way up to Detroit and had just headed north into Michigan when we started to hear a slight ticking noise, I was already on my way to not hearing too good but I could definitely hear this noise. We both ignored it for a mile or so hoping it would go away but it began to get loud enough there was no ignoring it any longer. One of us finally broke the steady roar of the 383's exhaust to ask the inevitable question, "What do you suppose that noise is?" We pulled over at the next exit and pulled into a run down, small convenience store in the middle of what seemed like nowhere. I wasn't anything like the movie Deliverance but it wasn't a comfortable place to be with an ailing hot rod and darkness arriving in a few hours. We began to diagnose the noise and with it being somewhere close to closing time on a Friday afternoon I knew that I had better get on the phone to find a local speed shop (in 2005 in a rural area, yeah right!) I called the closest Napa store I could find and lo and behold, they said there was a speed shop within 10 miles of our location! In the meantime my buddy had pulled a valve cover and found a broken 7/16" rocker stud, not something you'd find in most modern auto parts stores. The name of the speed shop was Kinola's Automotive. I called them and they had a rocker stud on hand and said they would stay open late for us, unreal! We pulled the plug on that cylinder and headed off to find them. It was a noisy nine miles driving there, but when we got there they loaned us a few tools and we were able to get it put back together in less than an hour. One of the lifters had popped out of its bore and was laying on the valley floor with no damage, using an extendable magnet they loaned us I was able to fish it back in the bore. They sold us a few extra rocker studs for insurance and I thoroughly enjoyed roaming around this time capsule of a speed shop for a few minutes while my buddy paid for the parts. As an added bonus the owner gave us a private tour of his personal junkyard which was located right next to the speed shop, lots of potential rides in there! While we had a blast at the Dream Cruise and also a day spent at Milan Drag strip, I would have to say that the impromptu stop we had to make at Kinola's speed shop was definitely one of the highlights of the trip.
     
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  16. mickeyc
    Joined: Jul 8, 2008
    Posts: 1,363

    mickeyc
    Member

    1965, Jakes Speed Equipment. On Iberville Street in New Orleans.
    Jake was the only game in town for racers and hotrodders. Then again
    he was all anyone needed. Catered to drag racers, oval racers and largely
    involved in supplying the boat racing guys as well. Of course all the local
    street guys also. The Jakes Speed Equipment logo appeared on many
    top flight race cars including Candies and Hughes. Mr.. Jake was pleasant to deal
    with and always treated me well when I spent my few dollars there.
     
  17. Hey Andy, I believe @Moriarity owns one of those displays! I bet he still busts a few gears when he walks by it :D
     
  18. Dick Stevens
    Joined: Aug 7, 2012
    Posts: 3,710

    Dick Stevens
    Member

    1959 or 1960 to buy a set of Moon discs for my first car, 49 Olds 88, but I can't remember the name of the shop that was located on the north side of Braasch Ave and 2nd St Norfolk, NE.
     
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  19. Butler 32
    Joined: Jun 9, 2019
    Posts: 13

    Butler 32

    Evergreen Speed shop in Everett Washington, in the mid-sixties. I went to buy a custom steering wheel and was overwhelmed buy all the cool stuff. Al Vandyke became good friends, he even sponsored my race car for several years, May he rest in peace.
     
  20. arkiehotrods
    Joined: Mar 9, 2006
    Posts: 6,803

    arkiehotrods
    Member

    1972 Grand Prix Speed Shop in Tulsa, OK. There was another shop on 21st St just east of Sheridan Road but for the life of me I cannot remember the name. I bought a lot of stuff there, too.
     
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  21. BamaMav
    Joined: Jun 19, 2011
    Posts: 6,707

    BamaMav
    Member
    from Berry, AL

    1977, I was 18, just fixing to graduate high school. We had a new parts house/ speed shop open up in a strip mall. I can't remember the name of it right now, but I had been to the NAPA store and this new store just blew me away! All kinds of speed goodies on display, chrome goodies, aluminum intakes, mag wheels out the wazoo, all the things a young gearhead dreamed about! NAPA had a few boring displays, but this place was a hot rodder's heaven! I became a frequent customer, I dropped in nearly every day at lunch time since I worked at the grocery store next door after I got out of school at 11:00 AM. Got to know the owner well, he was trying to set up a chain of stores, and even hit me up to become a manager of one of them after I graduated. I didn't take him up on it though, as the store he wanted me to work at was 45 miles away and I would have had to move there and I wasn't ready or able to do that at that time. Probably a good thing, as they didn't last but a year or two after that and they went out of business.
     
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  22. Mr48chev
    Joined: Dec 28, 2007
    Posts: 33,861

    Mr48chev
    ALLIANCE MEMBER

    B&B Auto parts on Ranier in Renton Wa was the first place I went to to buy hot rod parts that actually stocked real hot rod parts in quantity. I started going in there with my dad on dad and kid weekends when I was about 13 and got to see a lot of the stuff that I had only seen in magazines. Then in 1966 When I was 19 and had bought a 55 Buick Special and then stuck an engine out of a 55 Buick Super in it I picked up a Hellings and Stellings air cleaner and a chrome breather and some other pieces. Dad was a VFW Buddy with the owner and if dad was along and the owner was on the counter I got a pretty good discount.
    First of what you could call a speed part a bit loosely was a floor shift kit for my 51 Merc when I was 16 after the shift tube in the column broke twice. I got that at a Valu-Mart.
     
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  23. There was one by me and I bought a lot of parts there, they would re-curve distributors there. The parent company was American Speed and had a local warehouse where we picked up special orders. No clue what happened to them, they were gone by 1980 or so.

    Want a decal?
    https://nostalgicracingdecals.com/shop/midwest-auto-specialties
     
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  24. This place is still around, Mars Auto Parts in Bay Shore NY.
    https://www.mars108.com/

    Same owners that waited on me in 1973. They were on the pricey side, but knew their stuff. They stocked a lot of hot cams and lifters and other speed equipment. They had the machinery to crank out exhaust systems on demand.

    This is me in front of their store a couple of years back.
    IMG951035.jpg
     
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  25. Back in 1958, I was hitchhiking in my U. S. Army uniform on the Berlin Turnpike in Newington, Connecticut, and I was picked up in a black 1955 Chevrolet two door sedan. The driver had the rev's up, and the clutch out before I had even closed my door. He was Don Gallant, owner of Don's Speed Shop on the Turnpike. We became friends after that until his passing. His son Paul runs the speed shop that is still in existence.
     
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  26. connielu
    Joined: Apr 21, 2019
    Posts: 180

    connielu
    Member
    1. A-D Truckers

    Bell and Gains Speed Shop, Modesto Ca. For a teenage kid it was like nirvana, having grown up listening to my Dad talk about Charlie Bell, Jack Mc coy, "Oakball", Gene Winfield, and Socks Suzuki (Modesto's Hot Rod elite) All of whom had undoubtedly hung out there.
     
  27. corncobcoupe
    Joined: May 26, 2001
    Posts: 7,257

    corncobcoupe
    SUPER MODERATOR
    Staff Member

    B&B.png

    B&B Performance in Branford, Connecticut.
    Started / opened in 1968 but I remember going in there my first time when I was 18 in the late 70's to get a 4bbl manifold and new Quadrajet for my 69 Firebird.

    While it is not in its original location when I was a kid visiting for the first time, it IS still open today down the road from its original location.

    A rather small shop now but what the hell - a guy could still go where car guys go ........

    Lets face it- Speed shops now aren't the same as speed shops back then.
    More dress up stuff / truck accessories / modern day 4 and 6 cylinder hop up stuff but give them credit - they ARE still open to this day.
     
  28. bschwoeble
    Joined: Oct 20, 2008
    Posts: 1,015

    bschwoeble
    Member

    Broughers Speed Shop. Lincoln Place. Above Homestead, PA. Woody Brougher really took care of the local racers back then. My first time there would have been early 1962.
     
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  29. 1930ModelA
    Joined: Sep 4, 2008
    Posts: 155

    1930ModelA
    ALLIANCE MEMBER

    1962, North County Speed Shop, St. Charles Rock Rd. St. Louis, Mo. Got my license and a ‘51 Ford convertible. Paid $300 for it which was high for the time, but it was a neighbors absolutely pristine, one owner car, Continental Kit and all, which I immediately tore to shit before his very eyes. Oh jeez, I’ve asked for forgiveness on that one many times.

    Went to North County Speed Shop to buy a 3 speed floor shift conversion kit, I think it was Foxcraft?
    Anyway, that began the carnage.
    88D937EB-844D-4EEF-A468-936C86DBA03A.jpeg
     
  30. low down A
    Joined: Feb 6, 2009
    Posts: 500

    low down A
    Member

    how can you be a iowa boy and not mention Laverty performance, bill tucker, rissman's machine shop, and of course when you put it all together you scooped the loop and cruised thru porky's
     

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