First Earl Scheib closes. Now, J.C. Whitney is being sold. http://www.prnewswire.com/news-rele...ted-online-auto-parts-retailers-99786634.html Who's next?
My dad bought a full carpet kit from there for his 50's caddy. It was a pretty nice piece for the money.
So sorry as back in the day we oldtimes lived by the parts and Paint jobs !!!! we had NO money and I made 35cents an hour after school at a 40 hour job !!!! These two kept the Hot Rod days going. At least for me and my teen friends. Tom ( Tired Old Man)
Roy Warshawsky must be turning over in his grave. Warshawsky/Whitney was an institution. I was always amazed at the good name brand stuff you'd occasionally get there. Never forget the State Street store (parking under the el) in Chicago nor the first time I took my son with me down there. An eye opener for him into another world.
Death nell for JC Whitney as we know it... what do you think a company that has been around since 1995 is going to do with a company that was est in 1905? restructure for more profit you think? JC W has a proven structure... leave it ALONE!!
JC Whitney has sucked for the last decade anyway. They no longer carry any of the cool old stuff that they were known for.
Yeah,back in the day J.C.Whitney was the only place to get stuff,some crap parts and good stuff to,Today we have all crap parts from Speedway and all the other internet Mexican and Chinese junk.dealers.
If you ever went into the store down town in the day you would understand the sadness of seeing it go away, like a candy store for us.
Many years ago on my first trip to Chicago I made a point of visiting the Whitney store. What a place! The floor was older than anyone I knew! I can only imagine how much worse, whatever is left of J.C. Whitney, will be now. Really sad.
I ordered a floor mat for my 64' chevy thirty years ago..and it was a factory fit. They don't have parts like that anymore.
At least a decade. Thanks China! Or, should I say, thanks fellow Amerikans for buying from China! Ah fuck, I went political again!
Got my first Warshawsky's catalog as an eighth grader in suburban Chicago in 1961 and made many trips down there in high school. In 1965 you could still buy BRAND NEW in the crate Hudson Hornet 308 engines from them for some ridiculously low price.
I almost re-built an entire VW 25 years ago from a J.C. Whitney catalog; before that, as a child, I'd spend hours looking at them. Then later in life, I got as much gratification from them as the Harbor Freight cat litter-box liner that I get in my mailbox all to often. And I don't have a cat. No tears here.
Francisco,when you went there,was there a dressed flatty or a S.B. Chevy with dueces by the front door?? Dan.
I used to buy sets of Fishtail Mufflers for my 72 FLH for $45 apiece from J C Whitney. Those same mufflers were $79.99 apiece from all the aftermarket motorcycle parts catalog ! J C Whitney was the only place to get custom parts for cars and bikes back in the day! Oh Well time marches on!
True, but it keeps happening, and we can only blame ourselves. My boss is going to fucking China next week for a few months, and I have to keep my opinons to myself at work.
I guess the Lifetime warranty on the waterpump on my Mercury will expire! In fact, just about everything in my Y-block is from Whitney! It's too bad the company didn't evolve into a supply house catering to vintage/special interest. Instead, they went with the late model market.
J.C. Whitney is being purchased and will become another Internet business arm of U.S. Auto Parts...... About U.S. Auto Parts Network, Inc. Established in 1995, U.S. Auto Parts is a leading online provider of automotive aftermarket parts, including body parts, engine parts, performance parts and accessories. Through the Company's network of websites, U.S. Auto Parts provides individual consumers with a broad selection of competitively priced products that are mapped by a proprietary product database to product applications based on vehicle makes, models and years. U.S. Auto Parts' flagship websites are located at www.autopartswarehouse.com, www.partstrain.com and www.automd.com, and the Company's corporate website is located at www.usautoparts.net. U.S. Auto Parts is headquartered in Carson, California.
JC Whitney began its life in 1915 as The Warshawsky Company, a scrap metal yard on the South Side of Chicago. The company's founder was a Lithuanian immigrant named Israel Warshawsky. Throughout World War I, Israel bought failed auto manufacturers and added new parts to his inventory. The Warshawky Company continued to grow, even during the Great Depression. The company closed its Chicago location and opened a new location in LaSalle, Illinois in 1997. However, it still has its headquarters downtown Chicago at 111 East Wacker Street. In 1934, Israel's son Roy joined his father at the company after graduating from the University of Chicago. Roy proposed expanding out from the Chicago-area with a nationwide catalog and placed an ad in Popular Mechanics for sixty dollars. The ad offered readers a "giant auto parts catalog" if they sent in twenty-five cents and response to the ad was huge. Roy took charge after his father's death in 1943. He continued to grow the business through World War II, always developing new strategies in response to changing customer needs. Roy retired in 1991. In 2002, The Riverside Company acquired JC Whitney. In 2007, The Riverside Company created Whitney Automotive group, which owns other companies such as CarParts.com, StylinTrucks.com, and AllBikeSupershop.com Well Goddamn, he was a Lithuanian, just like me. My dad's family is from Chicago, too.
For better or worse, this seems to be what businesses do best. Now stop asking questions and keep shopping at W*lM*rt. They're the business model that everybody wants to copy. And pretty soon all retail business will be sucked down to their level of soulless, boring, ruthless effeciency. Happy Happy Joy Joy!
I'll just close my eyes and remember the good old days when I would thumb through the catalog and dream........1964.......where the fuck did you go ??
The Jalopy Journal
