Posted on 06/14/2014 8:41:18 AM PDT by virgil283
"Kids: Want to know how we (once) pre-teens and teens spent the way-too-much free time we had back in the electronic dark ages of a half-century or so ago? We read books. The classics, of course, like the famous J.C. Whitney Automotive Accessory and Parts Book (J.C. deliberately called it a book in order to let us tell our parents we were indeed reading a book as though they really cared then, before the invention of helicopter parents). Now, one simply didnt read a JC W book cover-to-cover or randomly, without some higher purpose; no, we exercised our developing minds by using this book in a very specific manner, kind of like an app.
Before even opening it, you had to pick a certain make, year and model of car that, for some inexplicable reason, was of intense interest to you and no,not a new one; that didnt really work. Youd pretend that at the age of 12, you somehow had the requisite amounts of money and legitimacy to buy a used car...."
.....;
I bought a copy of that book for a co-worker about 20 years ago. Don’t know if she still has the bug or not.
Thank you. As a 16 year old I probably spec’d out a couple of modified cars, that in my dreams I wanted to have, with JC Whitney.
First year I had my drivers license I used to lust after the glass pack mufflers and headers in that catalog.
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I bought a complete glass pack exhaust system for my Corvair Monza...
'71 Camper
Wasn't a neighborhood you went in lightly during the day, you sure wouldn't go in the evening!
Reminds me of the good old days. You know, when you could actually fix your car yourself without thousands of dollars in computerized diagnostic equipment!
I fell in love with the J.C. Whitney catalog in 1967 right after I bought my first car on my own, a 1965 Triumph Spitfire.
I knew when I bought it that it would need front disc pads soon, but when I checked the Triumph dealer, I found that a set of 4 pads was $32, a lot of money for me at the time.
Then someone told me about the J.C. Whitney catalog. I checked it and found a set of 4 pads for $7.98.
Figuring I had nothing to lose, I ordered a set.
When they came a couple of weeks later, I found they were Girling disc pads, made in England, the original equipment on the car.
Used the catalog regularly after that.
I used to be able to remember part numbers too... for locomotives when I worked on the railroad... but what's happened is my mind has been crammed to capacity with endless online account usernames and passwords and so these days I am lucky if I can remember what I ate for breakfast.
Memory is the second thing to go...
I was thinking back as to how years ago you ordered something from JC Whitney and were thrilled to get it 6 weeks later and sometimes the order was correct.
Now, I order stuff from Summit Racing on Thursday evening and it is sitting on my porch Saturday. Shipping that takes almost a week is disappointing. And the order is correct.
Thank you, Al Gore, for inventing the Internet!
I work for the railroad now, and at least you only have to deal with two manufacturers, and only a handful of models now. It’s only a matter of what parts they have in stock at the warehouse, and how bad you need that power to build a train.
I miss that job as much as I do not.
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