Folks Of Interest Your first visit to a Speed Shop

Hello,

My first visit to a speed shop was to Reath Automotive on 10th and Cherry Avenue in Long Beach in 1958. It was the ultimate place for most of the local Long Beach area hot rod/drag race guys since it opened years before. Back then it was Joe Reath and Joe Mailliard that joined forces. Then, Joe Mailliard split off and opened his shop near the downtown portion of Long Beach, near our old high school.

But, the smallest unknown speed shop we visited was located in the same block as a bunch of oil derricks and small homes. Back then, oil was drilled anywhere the land was available. It was near Signal Hill, (but, still in the city of Long Beach) where the oil derricks called home for plenty of years. This small speed shop was in a small, old home and garage. The location was known to our group of teenagers as a very dark spot in a quiet neighborhood, with homes sporadically spaced on each block. It was quiet and eerie at night.

The small speed shop was not advertised in the big papers or Drag News. It was word of mouth from the local hot rod guys and racers. It helped that the small shop was close to Lion’s Dragstrip, that was about 1.5 miles away.

When we drove up to the small shop, we passed by without any notice the first time. But after going around the block, on our next passing, the garage door was up and a SBC motor was on an engine stand. So, we assumed it was the small speed shop. We knew the name of the shop, but it has gone to the "lost names" folder over the years. They did not last too long in the years we were in drag racing and hot rods.

The small speed shop had what we were looking for, (SBC motor) at a lower cost than any other speed shop around Long Beach and Compton. The small old house was converted to the living room as a speed parts display room with glass top counters and cabinets. The garage was the workplace and also a larger item display area. The warehouse portion for spare parts and wholesale stuff was in another room behind the living room/showroom.

My brother and I lived in a similar small house with a two car garage that could have been the same floor plan. But, we were so happy to see the SBC block and in the glass counter cabinet, was a 6 Stromberg carb and manifold set sitting there. The SBC was a long block with an Isky Cam/Kit and aluminum pistons. It was a popular set up for any SBC motor at the time. This one was priced in our cost range and we bought it with the 6 Stromberg carb manifold set up.

The feeling of the small speed shop gave us ideas about starting our own speed shop/engine building business if the SBC motor turned our great for the 40 Willys Coupe hot rod. We liked the atmosphere of the small shop. It was not really in competition as those other big name shops had their advertisements and long time clients from the drag racing world.

This small shop had a good feeling about just having fun buying, selling and building something from scratch. To us, it was a no nonsense place that did not require much to be happy, building something and selling stuff to our friends.

Jnaki

From this experience of our consistent visits to Reath Automotive and their services, our little speed shop was just for us and our friends to buy some stuff at a lower cost that we could give them. My brother was good at pinching pennies to save for larger parts, so any little source was fine. He was not in it to make a ton of money and our lives were not dependent on the limited income.
Our own first Speed Shop in our backyard garage conversion structure.

Our little Speed Shop was actually listed on the So Cal Speed Shop Dealer List from 1960 to 64.

We wanted to pass on what we felt, in customer service, when we went to that original small speed shop with the hopes of finding something that would fill our needs. We did most of our limited business doing parts/accessory purchasing, while exchanging carbs, manifolds, cams, and blocks.