Speed shops
 

When I was growing up in the 80’s I had a 71 gto and one of my favorite things was to stop into the local speed shop to browse and contemplate all the goodies I could drop into my car. At the time, my local store was a super shops, some might remember a sponsor to Eddie hill, the guy who broke into the 4’s. Anyway my question is this - having recently gotten back into the hobby, do places like super shops still exist? Where can I dream of all my goodies in person? Or is it just internet/mail order these days?

There are at least 6 "speed shops" in the Dayton, OH area, a city of just over 100K population. So yes, they are still out there. Most have strong machine shop reputation or a long history that keeps the doors open. Don't expect internet pricing at a walk-in "speed shop". In most cases, they are paying more for the parts to re-sell than you can buy them for on the internet. Parsons & Myers Racing Engines, Ohio George Montgomery's Speed Shop, Performance Clinic, G & G Custom Speed, Ault & James Sped Shop, Kamer & Kamer, are all in the Dayton area. Parsons & Myers builds engines for several Pontiac customers who hold NHRA class records and sport many class wins in NHRA Stock and Super Stock with Pontiac 400's and 350's, believe it or not.

I have Jan-Cen. They have been around a damn long time. Some of you may have heard of Pro-Mod champ Mike Janis. Mike's father started Jan-Cen and I have known Mike since he would ride shotgun in his father's truck while both of us were heading to the track.

http://www.realpromod.com/wp-content...in-726x400.jpg
http://www.shakedownnationals.com/pi...a-champion.jpg

you guys are lucky. anyone know of any shops near westchester county, ny?

I had to drive 30 miles from my Old Hometown of ~60,000 people to get the headgasket surfaces of a block planed by a guy who's got ANCIENT equipment and he's ready to retire. There's no one in town doing automotive machining any more--and if it can't be had at AutoZone or Advance or NAPA, there's no local hot-rod parts either.

I bought my own valve grinder and seat grinder (but since I can't do guide work, I'm still in need of machine shop services for heads.)

John Dinkel ( punisher1) with the Pontiac powered Fairmont in my signature below recently purchased Austin Performance & Specialty a well known speed shop here in Austin. It's probably been around since the 60's in one form or another. The owner recently passed away and he bought it from the family. He has a partner in it and it's employees will remain. John will keep his regular mechanic job at the auto dealership and continue to operate his separate hobby race shop.


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Pep Boys has a Speed Shop in Bay Shore - https://www.pepboys.com/speedshop-pe...file/bay-shore Supposedly their pricing is competitive with Summit.

We used to have Gratiot Auto Supply, Ramchargers and several other speed shops around here in the Detroit area. I loved window shopping of the things that would be cool to have on my car. My Mopar buddies used to go to Mancini Racing in Detroit. We loved cruising and street racing on Woodward and Gratiot Avenues.

My Favorite - www.PontiacSpeedShop.com

Summit, Jegs, Amazon, Ebay sellers, & a few others have done to the local independent speed shops what Wal Mart did to all the Mom & Pop shops in all the small towns in this country.

Before those, there was Performance Automotive Warehouse. Any of you guys remember getting those big PAW catalogs ?

Back in the '70's & '80's I got a business license for a speed shop, so that I could buy my parts from what were called "warehouse dealers". Speed shops could buy from WD's for what they called "jobber price". To keep my volume up enuff to keep buying from the WD's, I'd sell to all the the hot rodders in my area for just a little more than my cost.

But, even back then, guys could buy from PAW cheaper than I could sell for, after adding tax. I remember one particular guy who'd only buy from me what I could sell him cheaper.

As others have mentioned, the only way an independent can have a speed shop is if their main business is a machine shop. Sometimes they can get better prices from certain companies, if they use their products exclusively. Cams & related equipment is an example. Probably lots of shops have a deal with Comp Cams. Many also probably have deals with certain piston companies, & suppliers of other engine building parts & supplies. I'm quite sure that there are several guys here who know about machine shop's deals with certain brands and/or suppliers.

https://www.bangshift.com/forum/foru...appened-to-paw

http://fepower.net/simplemachinesfor...p?topic=3748.0

Ponyakr is right. Traditional speed shops are more or less gone. The few shops I deal with stock parts they use themselves in race and performance builds as a convenience, not really as a retail point of sale type of thing. Super Shops, Nationwise Rod Shop, were more the retail type speed shops in my area. They have been gone for decades. Used to be fun to window shop. But I used to enjoy spending a few hours in the Sears tool department too. Life goes on. With the pricing structure a speed shop has to live with from a modern WD now, I don't see how one would survive. From what I have seen, a legitimate speed shop seller like Ponyakr today would only be able to buy parts for 3-5% less than anyone else could buy on the internet for most items. Very hard to make a living on that kind of margin without doing a huge volume.

One thing I have noticed is that occasionally, on certain parts, O'reilly or Auto Zone will have the best, or at least a very competitive price. But, they must charge tax. I recently learned that they have 10% veteran discount. So, that cancels out most of the tax, for vets.

They can order lots of different speed parts. You can also order from them, online, & have parts shipped direct, or sometimes to your local store.

O'Reilly just came to our little town last year. Auto Zone came only a few years back. I now buy from both. But I like O'Reilly best.

I remember PAW selling complete engine kits with the block and all. It’s a shame they went the way of all flesh. I have a Summit store about 100 miles from me. Carolina Rod Shop went out of business about 3 years ago but by that time they had gotten so expensive unless you had to have it right then it just wasn’t feasible. Classic Chevy of Greenville that specialized in 55-57 chevys didn’t survive the Internet either.

Out on Long Island you have SK SPEED . Been there from the 60's. They used to have three locations but now they're down to one. It's a cool place to visit. You can get just about everything , from tools to slicks . Nice to go there on a Saturday. People will pull up with their cars, park in front and go in to get what they need like the old days.

When I had my Business, I could buy from the Warehouse, just like you.
I was buying at the same cost for parts as Ramchargers, Gratiot Auto, Mancini, Richards Automotive, Super Shops, and Mayfair Auto Supply.

Eventually I got away from the Warehouse and bought right from TRW, Sealed Power, Wolverine, Melling, Crane, and Comp Cams.

Made Money, Paid my Taxes, and mostly bought Engine Parts.

You would be amazed at some of the mark-ups that were out there.

A Camshaft Company was making the actual Ram Air IV camshafts for Pontiac.
The Pontiac Dealer wanted over $200 for the Cam in the early 70s. I was buying the cams
for $17.39 each in batches of 10 at a time and selling them for 1/2 the dealer price.
Sold a lot of those camshafts. All of those deals are gone today with Summit out there.
But buying in volume was the only way they would deal with you.

Tom V.

Tognotti's in Sacramento has been around for awhile, and still going.

PAW was great, still have parts on my car from them. I liked that their huge catalog had actual pages straight out of Morroso, Milodon, Edelbrock, Crower ect.
All the factory seasoned blocks you could just buy all in one place. Good days.

If you go back to the late 60/70 you could by a short or long block for just about any car made from sears catalog deliver to your front door. Those days are gone . Doug .

Less-well known was that JC Puny used to sell headers and Cherry Bomb mufflers and all sorts of wrenches and sockets and ratchets. One day we get called-into the Big Meeting Room, where we find out via Satellite Conference that all the automotive parts, service, tools, house paint, etc (all the good stuff) was going to be discontinued. JC Puny figured that women's dresses sold at 300% mark-up, Cosmetics and Jewelry at least that, sometimes more--what the hell are they wasting space selling automotive crap at 50% markup.

Firestone took over the freestanding Penney Auto Centers, the smaller automotive departments were built right into the main Penney's store--they just got shut down and unemployed.

Speed shops were not welcoming to Pontiac folks where i grew up. Had to be a Chevy or Ford and full of stupid (money) to be a "regular".

Junk yards, machine shops and PAW were my speed shops for go-fast goodies.