I grew up in Albuquerque (just rolls of the tongue) and would go into SuperShops as a kid. The local rock station playing, display cases of speed parts and rows of wide 15" Centerlines and Cragars. It was amazing. These were the days of seeing Ozzy in a stadium concert, jacked up Novas with slapper bars and a garter belt hanging on the rear mirror.
That van is VANTASTIC!
Yeah I remember the one in Memphis.
I remember Don Garlits' cat from when I was a kid. Had the privilege to go to his museum back in the day too
IIRC their was one on the north side of Pittsburgh on McKnight/Rt. 19 in the early 1990's.
We had one on brookpark in cleveland. Think it's a 4wheelparts now. Used to lust over cragar s/s mags in their catalog
There was one in Pinellas Park between St Pete and Clearwater. Any body remember when Summit Racing just had single column ads selling reman'ed engines?
There was one on Hawthorne blvd in Torrance , never went there ....
I was going to Bap Geon , Beck Arnley and import car places.....
wawazat said:IIRC their was one on the north side of Pittsburgh on McKnight/Rt. 19 in the early 1990's.
Yup. I used to buy blem BF Goodrich tires for my Mustang GT at that store. As fast as I burned them off, the prices were awesome.
jgrewe said:There was one in Pinellas Park between St Pete and Clearwater. Any body remember when Summit Racing just had single column ads selling reman'ed engines?
I bought a performer intake and holly four barrel there in 88, headers and a cam the next year.
Edit: The friend that was helping me build that engine is now my teammate for our challenge car.
We didn't have SuperShops here, but we had a ton of others. The biggest chain was Western Performance, and my local one doubled as a bike shop. I used to get all my bike stuff from there, and would always wander over onto the speed shop side of the store with my dad when we went there.
When I started driving, I got most of my speed parts from a couple of other small shops. There was one a couple towns over that was awesome; the guy that ran the place had stacks and stacks of catalogs stacked everywhere and could get EVERYTHING. He used to hook us up with the "shop price" because one of my friends worked part time at a performance tuning shop. That was fun for a while until we went off to college.
The last one I frequented regularly was a small shop in the same town as my college. I had to pass by it on the way to/from school, so I stopped in once in a while to grab parts. The guy there was one of the 1st import guys I ever met that was serious about performance and not the flashy, show car stuff, and he changed my outlook on what could go fast. He had a white Integra Type R that was immaculate. I remember him lecturing me on "adding lightness" and showed me some wheels he had picked up for the Type R that weighed only 11lbs! Super cool guy.
Man, I miss those places.
We had one in Atlanta. IIRC they had the 175/50R13 white-letter BFG on the floor.
I remember the fire and back story from Dave Wallace:
Selections From The Hot Rod Magazine Archives Ed Pink's final season of supplying fuel Hemis came to a spectacular climax with Super Shops' unprecedented giveaway campaign of a Plymouth Arrow Funny Car. It got off to a bad start in the winter of 1980 with Ed McCulloch's fiery maiden voyage at Orange County International Raceway (shown). McCulloch won the U.S. Nationals with the replacement car, and at Ontario Motor Speedway's NHRA World Finals, Super Shops handed that car to a lucky customer.
Never previously revealed is the behind-the-scenes drama that accompanied HOT ROD's decision to publish this picture the first time (in May '80). Super Shops owner Harry Eberlin threatened to pull all advertising from both HOT ROD and Car Craft if the photo ran, "because it makes me look bad." Eberlin also owned Mallory and Erson, so a sizable chunk of change was at stake. My position was that Super Shops' promotion could only benefit from the free publicity, and Eberlin was probably bluffing. I also argued that the world's largest automotive magazine should not compromise its editorial integrity by bowing to an advertiser with a bruised ego. Editor Lee Kelley agreed. Ad guy Harry Hibler shrugged. Publisher Dick Van Cleve looked away. The photo ran, and Eberlin canceled his program, though they started coming back to Car Craft after I'd resigned from Petersen Publishing.
Ironically, HOT ROD's refusal to yield probably saved the company money when Eberlin's empire collapsed and stuck many publishers and manufacturers with tens of millions of dollars worth of unpaid bills.-Dave Wallace
I remember them, never had money to spend there though. We also had Ramchargers which was much closer to where I lived. Not much you could do 2.8L S-10 and no money however.
Patrick (Forum Supporter) said:We had one on brookpark in cleveland. Think it's a 4wheelparts now. Used to lust over cragar s/s mags in their catalog
I bought the ratchet shifter for my T-bird there, shortly before they closed. I broke the column shifter while trying to get onto 480 at Teideman, so after I figured out how to get it back into Drive, I turned around and went to SS and bought a shifter.
$65 for a Hurst Pro-Matic 2, in 1997. I had no idea how good of a deal that was until after I scrapped the car with the shifter still in it. D'oh!
You'll need to log in to post.
