History J. C. Whitney Catalog

You guys want to have some great fun, get yourself an old J.C.Whitney catalog and take a trip down memory lane. I have an issue #152 from 1959 and it is way fun! Wish we could order from it now! 6 duece intakes for $60 3 duece 235 chevy for $41.95 ect.... Talk about a wish book! I remember looking through these when I was about 14 and didn't have the money, now I got the money but only 50 years too late. Shucks!

 

One sits in the stack of reading material in my "reading room". Fun to sort through.

 

old almquist's and honest charlie catalogs are cooll to look at too.

 

It makes me made that Whitney is so crappy today, I wish they still stocked all the stuff they use to...

 

They stock what sells. Sure if they had vintage repop stuff, they would sell some, but nothing compared to the "bling" crap accessories they sell.

 

>>>>>,J C Witney had a Wholesale Co. too ,,called"Warshaski" ( sorry the spelling ain't correct ) ,,in '59 ,i ordered ny lowering blocks for my '51 Vicky from them ,,drove to Chigago to get em ,,Warshaski and J C Whitney were in the SAME building ,,on a corner with thier names on different streets ,walk in one door ,,you payed retail ,,go around the corner n walk in that door ,,you paid wholesale ,,i paid wholesale ,,$19.95 instead of $29.95 ,,

 

Bought a bunch of dress up stuff from J.C. for my '29 av8 in 1960. It was like Christmas when the two boxes (two large orders) arrived.

Frank

 

That $60 in 1959 is $403.40 in 2009 dollars. Not all that different, really, when considering inflation.

 

Its out at lasalle illinois now,in a very modern building.

 

I used to look at those catalogs and just dream, like a lot of you did also. Wish I'd kept some of them now. Butch/56sedandelivery.

 

I'll take one Lectra-Scope spark analyzer, please.

 

I'm kind of partial to this one from '62.

 

Now that's one for the old folks! I've never seen a Lectra-Scope in the flesh, but remember them being in the JCW catalogue.

I've got a JCW catalogue from the 1960s that I've had since new - it still looks like it just arrived, too.

I used to order stuff for imports from them and was always amazed that it usually was the wrong item with the right part number! How those guys could do that with such regularity has baffled me for decades!

 

Most of the time I find my accessories by pot luck.. on the bay...

I always wanted to find a JC Whitney book as old as I could .. I found a 1956 "accesory" book... While I was turning the pages I came across this ad that . I new I would want...

I typed in the bay Kar-Table ... and found one... It was a lot easier to find it this way...

Heres some pictures of the ad and the item istalled in my 40 Plymouth with some 1940 Fleet-Wing gasoline cards...

 

I ordered some things from them in the early 60s and kept getting catalogs for over a decade. They had a huge section inside dedicated to the Model A and then the VWs. Most of it was the imported Argentina repro crap from that era.

Don't forget the good old Pep Boys catalogs. I'm a catalog junkie.

 

actually some of their stuff ain't to bad, i used their carpet kits on 2 or 3 cars and they really are nice , fit good

 

I remember those tissue-thin paged catalogs from the 50s and 60s and all the stuff we dreamt of getting someday. They were also found in our reading room, sometimes those pages ended up serving a dual purpose

Didn't Jan and Dean say something about getting stuff from a "..mail order catalog..." - which I always figured was J.C. Whitney, for their "Schlock Rod"?

 

I bought the bumpers, headlight rings, door sills and many other parts from JC Whitney in '73 for my '40 Plymouth. They used to stock so many repro parts. We drove to Chicago to save a few bucks shipping cost. I still have the car.

 

In 1964 I was 14 and my dad had a '57 Chevy 210 2 dr. I was sure that I was going to get that car. I ordered a Whitney catalog and had earmarked every page that had something I wanted and I even filled out the order blank in preperation (had no idea where the money was going to come from). In 1965 he bought a new Ford Fairlane and sold the '57 for $325.00. I was crushed.

I never actually ordered anything from them but I got catalogs mailed to me at my parents house well into the 70's.

 

Yeah I ordered a lot of parts for my old 57 Ford from them back when I was young.Also bought a few motorcycle and VW parts too.It was our "wish book".We would go through the catalog and pick and choose the parts that we thought would build the baddest ass motor ever.Course we never had the money to actually build that motor. If you added up the claimed horsepower gains and fuel mileage from the adds you could easily build a 500 horse motor that would get 100 miles to the gallon!!!!
CONNMAN you are right about the Warswarsky (sp) thing.I never understood that .If I remember correctly they had the same address.

 

I still want a Winky the Cat for my package tray and a Mini Supercharger.

 

Somewhere in my stacks of magazines I have a '56 Whitney catalog. I kept it, too, because it's fun to look at. Well before my time, though.

 

One wonders how many 500 HP/100MPG VWs were built out of a JCW catalogue... Could you seriously increase HP with both a Judson blower and mini-charger? The mind boggles!

I think Car & Driver did a story back in the 1970s about the company.

 

I found a '62 Sears Automotive catalog awhile back.

I don't have it in front of me, but you could get rebuilt Flathead short blocks for like $150 bucks. Nailheads weren't much more if I remember right.

 

The engine that was in my dads '39 came from the Sears Catalog. We went down to Memphis to pick it up, and f after talking to the re-builder he made sure we got truck block, and aluminum heads. He even tossed in a Tatersfeld (sp) 2 pot intake! It was a long time ago... but $150 sounds about right for the package at that time

 

The first engine I ever rebuilt was a Chevy 283 and I ordered all the parts from J.C Whitney. When they came they were all in name brand boxes like Hasting etc. that engine ran great for a long time. They sure don't have much kool stuff in their catalog any more.

 

That $27 will get you the Holley pressure regulator, not the pump.

 

In late 1981 the sons talked old man Warshawski into selling ALL the old outdated warehouse inventory for scrap by the pound.Yes,the carbs,y block parts,09 stuff.they still had N.O.S.Strombergs.for about $20.They owned a junkyard across from the store on State st.I remember Ts and a lot of 30s cars in the yard.Behind the building on Archer was a paint co.which made some of the first metalflake materials.Dan.

 

I remember looking through the Whitney catalogs my parents use to get! I found an old auto trader from the late 80's recently, you should see how cheap people were selling old cars for back then! Today it would be like stealing them!

 

I'd love to meet the artist that drew the line art illustrations in those early J.C. Whitney catalogs.
That person had incredible talent.