[1965gp]

Mgarblik- we bought my 70 GTO in Dayton and it had receipts from Performance Clinic for the engine build.

That car looked like someone went crazy in a speed shop- 15x10 Cragars, orange battery box in the trunk, super coil, auto meter gauges, etc....

[64speed]

Greenwood Auto Parts in Greenwood SC is still a speed shop of sorts. The man can get you anything you want and is reasonable too with full machine shop service. He is the one that built Caster1 engine and will be building mine. About an hours drive from my house

[dhcarguy]

Originally Posted by MarkS57

Did you tell him to GFY? I suspect a Chebby leaning shop. I honestly enjoyed more respect from the Mopar & Ford guys.

Yes , they were Chevy guys. We moved to Langhorne(Trevose) in 1975. I only went in there once in the early 80"s. All the employees (just a few) drove POS chebbies. I did not like the guy I talked to (asked about getting heads done on a 283). Never went back.

Dave

[quicksilver97ta]

There used to be at least a couple of super shops here in the DFW Metroplex but they went away like all the rest of them. There was also Harry's Hot Rod, it hung around for a long long time and finally closed its doors this past fall. A couple years ago we were lucky enough to get a Summit here in town and now that's pretty much it. Very very convenient if you're lucky enough to live near one. They have an absolutely huge retail store. I never thought of that when I heard they were opening a warehouse here but that has turned out to be something really really neat.

[1968GTO421]

Originally Posted by quicksilver97ta

There used to be at least a couple of super shops here in the DFW Metroplex but they went away like all the rest of them. There was also Harry's Hot Rod, it hung around for a long long time and finally closed its doors this past fall. A couple years ago we were lucky enough to get a Summit here in town and now that's pretty much it. Very very convenient if you're lucky enough to live near one. They have an absolutely huge retail store. I never thought of that when I heard they were opening a warehouse here but that has turned out to be something really really neat.

I think Summit has a universal architecture. They have a store/warehouse just south of Atlanta (McDonough) that looks exactly like your's in TX. I only go there when my wife has research to do at the GA Archives on the south side of Atlanta, then I take the dog (Shih Tzu) go down to Summit, put him in a shopping cart and go shopping. The last time was several years ago, the guard may be different now and dog may be banned. Still, it's an amazing experience to shop there for parts.

[mgarblik]

Originally Posted by 1965gp

Mgarblik- we bought my 70 GTO in Dayton and it had receipts from Performance Clinic for the engine build.

That car looked like someone went crazy in a speed shop- 15x10 Cragars, orange battery box in the trunk, super coil, auto meter gauges, etc....

Sounds like vintage "speed equipment" for sure. Performance Clinic opened in the early 1970's, primarily a Chevy Speed Shop like so many others. They grew and eventually moved to a larger location in the same area. As the muscle car craze died down in the 1980's they re-branded themselves as "the engine company" and sold and installed allot of crate engines. As that business kind of died off, they are once again more of a traditional speed shop. They do seem to be able to adjust to the market and stay in business.

As far as speed shops go, we are really lucky here in Ohio. In addition to the smaller real speed shops I mentioned in a much earlier post, Ohio was the original location for both Summit Racing and Jegs. As such, they have retail outlets in several locations in OH with great hours. I can remember having to make a 150MI run to a Jegs on a Sat. night to get some part we desperately needed for the Grocery Getter at like 10:00 PM. They were open til Midnight. That's even better than Amazon Prime!

[64speed]

The summit stores are nice. If we had one close by I would definitely be trying to get a job. I know places like amazon and Walmart let their call center people work from home so I tried many years ago to get a job with summit taking any kind of calls they would hire me for but at the time all the call were handled in Ohio. Maybe it’s changed

[lust4speed]

When I was a teenager in the mid 60's we patronized a small, somewhat junky speed shop down a side street in Inglewood, CA not too far from the Forum. The shop dealt in buying and selling used speed equipment along with new stuff. Then I went in the Air Force and didn't move back to the area. Funny thing is I now buy a lot of the shop's speed parts - SKAT Enterprises. Back then it was Tom and one other person, and Tom could tell you anything and everything about whatever you were thinking about buying.

I patronized several speed shops in the 70's and 80's and put up with the inconvenience of being a Pontiac person - which meant a 35 mile drive to the speed shop, not having the Pontiac part in stock, ordering the part sight unseen, driving home and then about a week later making the round trip drive to pick up the part hoping the counter guy ordered correctly. Even after Summit fired up they wouldn't sell to California residents for years. It was like Christmas every day when they finally broke down and included us.

[Will]

Speed shops are all gone around here. Used to be several around in the '80s. I remember Super Shops, that's where I bought the Koni shocks and poly sway bar bushings and "turbo" mufflers for my Formula. Also bought a few sets of tires there as they had the best prices on BFGs.