Sorry it's not a tecnical question, just giving everyones brain a break! Now granted I love the convenience of fingertip shopping on the web but I miss the heck out of going to the local SuperShop or speed shop and seeing all that performance hardware in person :cool: . Not to mention the collection of cars that can be found outside on any given day. Good way to meet folks too. Anyone else?

I miss seeing all them parts right in front of me. Makes ya want to speed some money.

I miss being able to go down & check out the parts but not the folks that were in the stores. to be kind, they were ignorant & the service flat out sucked. we had 3 stores here locally & they were all the same. its too bad that they could not manage thier stores to be able to compete with the mail order folks.

Bob

it would be nice if there was a place in town that knew what a pushrod guide plate was and sold parts that are not made by Mr. Gasket. :(

I guess I shouldn't complain about having to drive 45 mins. to get to Summit... I do miss the convienience of Super Shop (or Stupid Shop as we used to call them) they were only 10 mins from my house....

We still have a "SUPERSHOP" here in Winnipeg Canada, although it was a franchise of the American chain, its still going strong. So far! LOL!

Not at all. Too much attitude in that place.

Our ONLY Local shop, Pro-Circuit, burned down last week. Had $500,000+ of cars inside including a 7 second twin turbo 300 ZX and an RS/SS 68 Camaro among other classics. Real Shame, the preliminary cause is Lightning, we had a real strong electrical storm that evening.

i miss'em.w'ere down to two hi-perf dealers in the birmingham,alabama area and one sales mostly low budget crap.i quit calling one of them when they told me they don't carry manley valves.if i come into any big money in the future i'm going to start my own hi-perf business complete with first class machine shop and well-paid, knowledgable,courteous staff.i can dream,can't i? :D

Jegs is right here in Columbus. Most of the time the guys in there are fairly good at answering questions. There is one who is especially good with small block chevys. graemlins/beers.gif

We still have a few and one really knows his stuff but the prices are usually a little higher plus you have to pay sales tax. The one thing I really don't like is waiting 20 minutes for the guy in front of me to decide what style of "spinnas" he wants on his import.

hee!hee!good one!personally,i don't think "spinnuhs"have a place in my world...except maybe when i was 7 years old and put playing cards in my bicycle spokes.i think "spinnuhs"should go back to being on top of beanie caps. :D

We in Atlanta are lucky, a 20 minute ride and you are at one of the best speed shops in the country, Barnett Racing. If you need it they got it from a complete 632CI BBC all the way down to vacuum plugs, and they are 3% - 4% cheaper than Summit and Jegs. We are alos spoiled in that we can drive 45 minutes to Year One for the Restoration stuff. If you have a street rod we also have that covered with Moon River Street Rods. Man, I feel lucky!!!

Regards,

Originally posted by USFATL:
We in Atlanta are lucky, a 20 minute ride and you are at one of the best speed shops in the country, Barnett Racing. We are also spoiled in that we can drive 45 minutes to Year One for the Restoration stuff. If you have a street rod we also have that covered with Moon River Street Rods.Steve,
You can't forget Goodmark...just a short drive to Lawrenceville. graemlins/thumbsup.gif
No wonder rebuilding Chevelles around here is so much fun. ;)

Not really.... I liked to buy ignition from someone other than Mallory and tires from somebody besides BF Goodrich once in a while.

Although, I did make some money off of them; I was installing satellite dishes for spare change back in the mid 80s, and their corporate office contracted with the people that hired me, to put a new receive/transmit Ku band POS setup in every store.... it was a big heavy dish with a big feed-horn-mounted HPA and lots of bracing, and they were real particular how they wanted it put in and it had to be done by somebody that knew what they were doing (being a transmitter)so it wouldn't screw up their whole network, so it paid pretty good; plus after that the guys that worked there knew me and would give me good deals on stuff.

lucky,lucky,lucky! graemlins/thumbsup.gif

I'm real lucky where I'm at. I'm down the street from a great basic parts store and a hi-performance store. For my general parts needs I have Tops Automotive. Everyone knows what their doing, are super nice guys, and no fart cans or neon "things" anywhere. Then, I have Chet Herbert Performance thats my main performance part place. The guys are great and real knowledgable. A little pricey but deffinatly worth it.

I always liked going to the Super Shops, my expectations were low, so they worked out for me. Too bad the Super Shops foray into big time mail order bankrupted the company (along with a big push over the cliff by Boyd Coddington).

I know that there is no real connection, but to me it seemed like the import crowd really took off when the Super Shops shut down.

Locally there is an amazing array of muscle era shops: Original Parts Group, Classic Camaro, C.A.R.S., Muscle Factory, and more. For speed shops: Chet Herberts, Santa Ana Speed, Orange County Speed, and a few other players. I know of at least six local dyno facilities, three of which I have used. Several local Chevy dealers stock high performance parts.

Except for the fact that it is all so much more expensive then back in the glory days of American muscle cars - there is really more availability of everything.

Thomas

We still have several in the Houston area. A couple are pretty good places,but a lot of times you get that "why are you bothering me" attitude from the sales people.Kinda like the local Hotrod message boards.They use the Voy Forumns,you know where people can use any name they want(or no name at all).Makes for a lot of "Keyboard Badasses".Anyway(sorry to get off subject,needed to vent a little)both of these get old.Sometimes its nice to order from a catalouge and not deal with the attitudes. smile.gif

Heck ya!!! how's about that 5 year warrenty on Mallory fuel pumps and ignitions :eek: :eek:

Here in NC. the performance shops seem to have disappeared. I used to get my performance parts from Discount Auto Parts. They even gave me a line of credit (man was that fun). They are no longer around here any more. But I am 45 minutes from Ausley's Chevelle, 1 1/4 hr.s from Hinsaw's Chevelle and 2 1/2 hours from NPD.

I miss them primarily for the convenience. They didn't have everything all the time, but you could pop in and pick up those little things like a Holley gasket kit that otherwise would stop you dead for a day or two.

Supershops used to be on the south side, and then some almighty power had mercy on me and they built one about twenty minutes drive from my house. I knew it wouldn't last. :( The building still stands empty. They only took the words off of it within this past year.

There have been several shops that have closed since I got into cars in the 80s. One just closed about two years ago. There's only one left that I know of that's worth much, and I have to take off work early if I need to get down there before they close on a weekday. I guess it's better than nothing.

Lots of times, if I know I need the part ahead of time, I just order off the net, because the wait would be the same for both, but if the part came in at the shop I'd still have to drive down there to get it when it arrived. With internet ordering I can come home from work and find it on my doorstep, which is a real time saver on so many occasions.

Yes I do ! Even with the "tudes" every performance shop close to me is closed or being taken
over by the chains. We have one were I live and the hours are a joke 9-5 weekdays and 10-1
on Saturday! :confused: I have to leave work early to get there on time and if I get the wrong thing or
size I am screwed till the next day and then leave work early etc. etc.
I am now ordering everything from Summit and they are great !(really great graemlins/thumbsup.gif ) But if I need something like
a fitting or gasket or anything that can't be looked up by a monkey and a computer I have to add the
$8.99 handling and wait two days.
I would gladly pay the tax on a $12.99 item(95 cents) to be able to buy it and install it the same day.
Now $12.99 costs me $21.98 and a few days of waiting not to mention if it doesn't fit or something is wrong
It will cost another $7-$10 dollars to return it and at least a week for the exchange to arrive.

Man..... better stop I'm pissing myself off :mad: !!

Once a year I get to go to Jegs and Summit racing..........man you talking about wanting to spend some money. And now summit has doubled the size of their showroom. graemlins/thumbsup.gif

The guys that ran the one here opened thier own when the Super Shop closed and they were ok for a while. When the bling-bling trend hit they turned into mostly a tire store. They do have a dyno now but they're mostly a bunch of Mustang racers. They don't stock diddly, you have to order everything. unless it's something for a stinkstang.

A new store just opened and may be much better if they can stay in bussiness. I needed a Mallory Unilite module and one was hanging on the wall, pricey, but no wait. Also picked up a set of the thick valve cover gaskets while I was there, can't even get a standard set for a big block at the other place, but they will order them and have them by the weekend if you get there by the middle of the week. graemlins/angry.gif

i bet they have a buttload of stickers,wings and neon light kits! graemlins/sad.gif

The Stupid Shops here sucked too.Way too much attitude in there.If you weren't a drag racer from the track, you were gettn' ignored or jacked!!

Harry's Hot Rod was a little bit cooler in my hood.....But not by much.

Bad rat ... if you swing thru Raleigh, there is a place on 416 S Dawson St called Tires-N-Parts. They have some pretty decent inventory, a little small, but pretty decent ... Of course, they do cater a lot to the import crowd these days, but I understand that they arew trying to make money ... Still, they have or can get a lot of stuff ... Check them out ... Back to the original question, No, I do not miss SuperShop...Why??? Bad customer service and bad attitudes. I listened to them talking to a couple of other customers other than myself...You would have thought they were doing you a favor by working the cash register ...Bad people skills....

I miss Super Shops, Hawaii Racing, Service Center PAW, all the Speed Shops ..tudes or not .. they had the parts .. where I'm at now I had to order a fuel pump block off plate for a SBC. They have Neon Lites in 42 differant colors tho.