KPH speedo's

[William]

I unofficially worked at "7552" from '85-'97, leaving when Doug moved to NV. He busies himself by going to about every swap around trolling for rare literature/promo items to peddle on ebay.

Everything reminds me of a story and this is no exception. In the '70s Doug had a wrecked '69 convert rebuilt as a Z11 [who cared in those days?] and set to collect all of the promo items related to it. An inveterate card player, he had a local promotional company manufacture hundreds of decks of cards with the Z11 post card photo on the back, many of which were sold through Old Cars. I've seen them displayed as "rare promotional items"; you would think the 1976 copyright on the carton would be a clue.

Many names familiar to the hobby passed through the doors: Normann, Drueck, Cunneen, Esse, Hampton, Bulaw, Dyer, Pearse, to name a few and in the summer there were always neat cars around in addition to the '67 Z/28 and ZL1 that lived there.

As I said, all gone now.

[vintagegz]

thought I should sneak in here, 1978 was the first year for metric speedometers in Canada. Before that time we built CKD (Complet Knock Down ) cars that were sent to Europe, South Africa , South America and Australia. These would of had metric speedometers from the factory. Domestic Canadian cars were labelled Drive 1, cars built in Canada for shipping to the U.S. were Drive 5, export overseas were usually Drive 3. Drive 3 cars would have a metric speedometer. Hope this helps, your friend in the archives.

[Belair62]

William...why would you let Normann and Bulaw in the building ? ........BTW I think it's great to have George Zapora contributing...

[William]

They agreed to pay triple-list price...

That's a joke BTW. Doug was so cheap Z&Z or Heartbeat would often buy our entire Hemmings ad for our asking prices.

Z&Z was an experience. Heaps of parts everywhere. We were in his office talking about Z11s and he mentions he has one, a BB/4-speed. It was parked about 20 feet away and you absolutely couldn't see it.

[Xplantdad]

William...where was Z & Z...? I vaguely remember a place like that in SoCal...it started out in Garden Grove...then moved to the city of Orange...same place?

[William]

When I was in contact with them they were in Orange County CA. We would pay a courtesy call when in CA shopping the Pick-A-Parts prior to Pomona. They asked murderous prices for stuff; don't know how he stayed in business. They are gone also; liquidated a couple years ago.

If you have been in the hobby a really long time you will remember Bob Wingate..

[Belair62]

Wingate ads in the old Cars & Parts were cool...he handled a lot of iron.

[Xplantdad]

Yep...it's the same place then...I got big block pulleys from him for my Nova way back when (circa 1979)...he WAS a ripoff...that's why I started going to pick your part, too!

[Steve Drueck]

Billy they didn't stay in business, John would ask prices like $700 for a 67 plain console, back when they were worth $100, then keep accumulating stuff so deep it would get trashed. They were on Lemon ST in Orange CA. People would drive in rust free cars and sell them for a couple hundred dollars. Tow trucks would bring Camaros in on the hook. They got way behind on the money with the landlord (allegedly) and finally there was a liquidation auction where a lot of stuff got sold for cheap. Most of the cars and good stuff went to Dan Ruth in Perris before it went down, and he got posession of most of the cars and parts he moved up there eventually through another legal deal (allegedly) When John called me he was still asking heaps of money so it wasn't worth moving it all east. This was all many years ago. Last time I saw Dan Ruth he was tricking out Hummers. He sold most of the Camaro stuff. Dan's a good guy always tinkering with something. Z & Z had a lot of rare cool stuff, too bad it ended that way. Unfortunately there was a long string of customers over the years that were unhappy with the parts they received for the price they paid. I guess if they kept them until today, the prices would have caught up by now! I saw John a while ago at Pomona, he still sets up far down on Chevy row from us now and them. Dougie was very cheap on available parts, but you always told me they were "stolen" , say it ain't so! Maybe having no kids to feed and inheriting a GM store kept the overhead down a bit too! And those $30 rosewood wheels, and $100 12 bolt posi rears. well, as you say, all true. aaahhh the good ole' days!

[Xplantdad]

Steve...that's definitely the place. I ended up living close to Shaffer St. and Chapman Ave. in old town Orange. I would walk right by that place a couple of times a week...