During a recent bout of basement-cleaning, I came across two nearly mint copies of the legendary J.C. Whitney & Co. mail order catalog. These were from 1979 and were mixed in with a bunch of old papers from my first year of college. The fact that they seem to be nearly un-read is indicative of the fact that by the Fall of 1979 I was moving on to other pursuits where I’d have much less time – at least for a while – to pore over these catalogs. Thus, finding them again after a 41 year absence inspired more than a little reflection on how the world has changed over what has now been very nearly my entire adult life.
As you no doubt know from personal experience or as a follower of vehicular legend, the J.C. Whitney catalog – or “book” as it was also called on the spine of the 200 page, magazine-bound, publication – was a digest of automotive weirdness that made its way every several weeks from 1917-19 Archer Avenue Chicago, IL to your very own mailbox. Back then, once you got on their mailing list, the publication would tend to follow you around pretty much eternally. The copies that came to my house were actually addressed to my dad as he was the one who had originally purchased something from them – probably Simca 1000 brake parts or maybe roof rack rails for the 1961 Plymouth wagon – six addresses and at least a dozen years before the 1979 issue that I’m showing here.
We actually seldom ordered anything from J.C. Whitney, but for me at least ordering was never really the point. Rather, it was simply reading.
Note that I said “automotive weirdness”. Yes, sure, to address the obvious, J.C. Whitney probably served some people as a mail order source of more or less traditional auto parts.
In a typical 1970s-era 200 page catalog, there were a dozen or so pages of parts listings for stuff ranging from gaskets to brake shoes to camshafts. Remember (or know) that this was in the days before there was a well-stocked AutoZone, Advance Auto, or O’Reilly’s on nearly every corner. If one wanted access to the “World’s Largest Selection of Automotive Parts” – as the book cover assured you – the J.C. Whitney catalog was the only real game in town. It was equivalent to the Sears (“Where America Shops”) catalog, but only for vehicle parts. And it was all right there at your fingertips with a Postage Paid order blank.
Postage, like the charges for long distance telephone calls, was a BIG deal back then…trust me. So right from the get-go you were assured that J.C. Whitney was going to save you money. This point would be hammered repeatedly on nearly every page.
But really, regular auto parts are not why we’re here, and they’re certainly not why I was a devoted reader of J.C.’s book. No, it was always the “Accessories” that caught my eye, and I think these best showcase the ways in which J.C. Whitney was so reflective of its time.
It’s the guy from the Devo album and he’s here to pump you up.
Here’s a good ad to start with. What the heck? says 2021-me. A little Internet reading indicates that these devices were popular in the 1950s through at least the 70s and that there was “little chance” that they could wind up filling your tire with a fuel/air mixture.
Uh huh.
Still, I wonder about the wisdom of running the engine on 3, 5 or 7 cylinders for any extended amount of time (particularly 3) that it might take to inflate a tire…or “spray paint” as some other ads mentioned. I don’t know, maybe someone here has tried one of these things or remembers someone who bought one.
A very popular J.C. Whitney item – as judged by the number of listings in each catalog for similar products –was pretty much anything that could be “sprayed-on”.
Versions of both of these products are still sold, but I suspect that modern users who believe that they “stop rust cold” are relatively far and few between. Still, in 1979, when cars seemed to come from the factory pre-rusted, the idea that you could get something out of a spray can that would result in rust-proofing was pretty magical.
Likewise, the combination of making something not-so-new look bright and shiny “again” – “for just pennies” — was clearly a pitch that resonated with J.C. Whitney’s intended customer.
“Instant parties”, because a can is SO MUCH EASIER than taking cheese out of the refrigerator. Oh wait, I forgot, in 1970 we didn’t HAVE cheese in the refrigerator…Unless you were French or something.
Plus, it was the 70s. Know, young Padawan, that this was a time when there was very little good that couldn’t be made better by putting it into a spray can; much to the dismay of the planet’s ozone layer.
Inherent in all of the spray-on rust-proofing/rust-repair products throughout the catalog is the idea that the J.C. Whitney customer could get something valuable for much less money than he ever knew was possible. Aside from this likely being actually true – just look at those prices! – the whole J.C. Whitney pitch seems targeted at a combination of Depression-era austerity (“You don’t need to spend MONEY on THAT!”) and the then-growing distrust of “The Man”. In both cases, the subtext is that there exists a “THEY” who are just waiting for the next rube to come along and spend money on something that he ought to be able to get for less or (even better) via some kind of McGyvered alternative that only the well-initiated could know about.
This does beg the question if the “They” in this case was the same “they” that according to the Snack Mate ad thought up the idea of producing spray cheese. But when it came to cheese, I guess “they” were ok. Oh…it’s just so confusing.
While our current culture is still somewhat distrustful of The Man (who is just as likely to be a woman, now), we seem to have generally fewer problems with spending money. Maybe this is because we seem to have a whole lot more of it now. Or maybe it’s because the Depression-era folks are largely no longer with us. I’ll leave that for another discussion, elsewhere.
So, a certain celebration of thrift was definitely at the core of many J.C. Whitney products as was the case in much of the general culture of the time. But it’s still worth noting that sometimes the penny-pinching thing went to extremes.
That’s right, “saves you money” on oil filters! Boy howdy don’t you just hate the high cost of oil filters? Well, say no more! This product is clearly for you, Scrooge McDuck (or Mr. Krabs, if you’re from a later cartoon generation).
Don’t tell anyone. It’ll be our secret. Us and the other enlightened readers of the J.C. Whitney catalog. And not only will you be saving your hard-earned Simoleans by sticking it to those crooks at Fram, Bosch, etc.….but you’ll also be using the best-known filtering material available ANYWHERE. Bet you thought it was for something else altogether. Well, now you know. Not that THEY would ever tell you.
Guess what? In 2021, you can still buy toilet paper oil filters. There’s a company selling them online, helpfully named the Toilet Paper Oil Filter Company. Amsoil even has a page devoted to the pros and cons of these devices. This page hints at one of the main drawbacks of the TP filter. That being the use of toilet paper that is engineered just fine for … you know … but not necessarily up to the tolerances sufficient for insertion into your engine’s oil-flow. All of this I was able to discover through a few minutes of online searching. Unfortunately, in 1979 (not to mention the 1950s when ads for this thing probably first started running) Tim Berners-Lee was barely out of college and thus there wasn’t a WWW, and therefore 1979-me would have nothing to rely upon except for the tiny type in the J.C. Whitney catalog. Well, maybe I could turn to Goober down at Wally’s…who’d likely be just as happy to let me slowly starve my engine of oil due to poorly engineered toilet paper. There’s good money in doing rebuilds.
The inquiring J.C. Whitney catalog reader/customer might ask how come if toilet paper is so superior to the oil filter his car came with, then how come toilet paper filters had to be purchased as an after-market accessory? Well, weren’t you reading? It’s a SECRET. Sheesh. This is of course on top of the fact that only chumps and those entirely cowed by the oil-filter-industrial-complex buy over-priced parts and supplies from dealers. Come on…after market is the BEST market!
Didn’t spring for the rear window defroster? Heck, for under $10 you can get a stick-on one that looks like it’s factory equipped! Take THAT Detroit!
Car doesn’t already have a snazzy – “sports car styled” – luggage rack? J.C. gives you options! You can either drill a bunch of holes in your car to achieve the proper effect, or if that’s more work than you’re up to, you can get a suction-cup mounted one. Either way, they’re sparking-chrome and rust-proof. Of course, the same probably can’t be said of your car after you’re done driving it around a couple of winters with dozens of extra holes drilled in the trunk lid or roof.
Well, there’s probably something in a spray can that can take care of that when the time comes.
“Sound Just Like The Real Things!”
Of course I have to give due to the iconic J.C. Whitney (although there are so very many contenders for what can be considered “iconic” J.C. Whitney) line of after-market horns. This two-page spread should cover all of your Yelp-Yelp-Yelp, Ah-OOO-GAH and Hollywood Wolf-Whistle needs.
Finally, the mid-to-late 70s catalogs also reflected some of the key geo-political issues of concern at the time. I’m referring to the “gas crises” of 1973 and 1979.
For those too young to have lived through those years in the U.S., it’s hard to convey the complete shock, panic, and dismay that these events launched upon the American driving public…and society in general given the auto-centric culture that was post-war America. The seemingly overnight (in 1973) rise in at-the-pump prices from around 25 cents per gallon to over 50 cents simply blew peoples’ minds. Plus the virtual rationing (based on odd/even digits in your license plates) initiated in the Fall of ’73 fell upon a population that still vividly recalled — and therefore feared — full-fledged gas rationing during WWII. Except that time, gas rationing had come linked with a national commitment to fight Nazis and the folks who had bombed Pearl Harbor. Weren’t we done with this 31 years later in 1973??
Nope.
And it all happened again in 1979!
Rockville, MD gas lines. 1979. I feel that I may be in that picture…
Whether based in reality or not – I’d say “not” by my own experience at the time – the popular culture therefore became quite concerned about “gas thieves”. People desperate enough to go to the effort to suck the precious commodity out of your gas tank instead of shelling out an outrageous 50 cents a gallon to buy it on their own. Of course J.C. Whitney had a solution for that!
He’s well-dressed, and his hose is well-coiled. But he’s scowling like a criminal for sure.
This was part of an overall increased awareness of the fact that many cars at the time were woefully unprepared to thwart miscreants. Typically, gas fillers were accessible to anyone with a hand to turn the gas cap, and hoods could be opened by anyone who wanted pull the little lever behind the grill. Inside hood releases or gas cap locks? What? You can’t trust your fellow man?
Anticipating the total collapse of social order, J.C. Whitney & Co. had your back; well before automakers typically made these features standard.
Although I do need to point out that the shifty dude in that particular piece of catalog art is most likely going to get taken care of by Darwinism before the cops get to him. Smoking while siphoning is probably not on the list of Gas Thieves’ Best Practices.
(And yes, that seems to maybe be a Pontiac – certainly not a VW – in the “For Volkswagen” ad. I have no idea if this was noticed in 1979.)
There you have it. Everything eventually comes together and popular culture is the virtual basement in which all of these old things pile up layer upon layer. Sometimes it helps to reflect upon the layers, as they often don’t look too much different from some of the other things we’ve yet to send down the basement.
Until it faded away, the J.C. Whitney catalog-book was an excellent reflection of popular attitudes and concerns related the day-to-day conditions of buying, owning, and maintaining vehicles; and in turn, it simply says a lot about what was important to its readers.
I suspect that many other CC readers have their own recollections of J.C. Whitney. This might particularly be the case if one were into Jeeps, VWs, or vans at the time as the catalog had whole sections devoted to accessories and parts for those.
Personally, my first J.C. Whitney purchase was actually several years after 1979, and was related to car audio.
No, not the RCA Music Service – an unusual intrusion of a name-brand product into the J.C. Whitney catalog…and one where I had already taped my penny, gotten my six “free” albums, and then committed to buying “4 more hits” that I really didn’t want for a price I couldn’t afford within the next three years — but rather something that supported a now equally archaic listening activity.
FM radio. My 1971 Buick (which I didn’t even get until 1980) had only an AM radio. This little add-on – attached with double-sided sticky tape since I didn’t at the time have a drill that could penetrate the Buick’s lower dash — kinda-sorta brought the Buick’s sound system into an era that went well beyond the talk-radio and non-stop 1950s music that AM had become by 1980.
Thanks to J.C. Whitney, I joined the “fantastic world of FM listening” and vastly improved the audio experience that Buick had given my car from the factory. More better, less money.
Who wouldn’t want that?
All J.C. Whitney scans are from the 1979 issue 383B, direct from my basement to these pages.
For more J.C. Whitney experiences here on CC, see Paul’s article originally from 2012 or Tom Halter’s recollections as a former J.C. Whitney employee!
Come to think of it, a locking gas cap wasn’t even needed for VW. Pre’68 Beetles had the cap inside the trunk that was locked from inside. Post-68 had the cap under a flap that was locked from inside.
Whitney’s VW engine parts were crap. I tried gaskets and mufflers. They didn’t fit. I ended up getting them from the dealer after all. (Admittedly the dealers were arrogant assholes who KNEW they had a monopoly, so Whitney’s ads were well aimed.)
Wow flash from the past. Got rear louvers for my Monza and a two-trumpet air horn which I put on a three-way switch so no one could get pissed at me for the loud sound.
Let’s not forget the product most associated with J.C. Whitney: Winky the Cat!
Oops! Forgot to add Winky.
No prob; many of us readers consider a blanket exemption earned by the last CC column about J.C. Whitney, where Winky was featured,
I owned a car with a blue interior and the carpet was repainted, blue over blue. The seller had no idea of the source, but for me it will always have been from JCW.
I found a weird variant to Winky the Cat. It’s the Mons-turn, a terrifying [not really] Frankenstein-like fellow that mounts on the rear package shelf. In each of his hands he has a fireball [red light bulb]. Hit the brakes and his hands raise up and the bulbs light up. When turning, the hand relating to the turn signal glows red!
I think I still have 2, maybe 3, left over from the original case of 12, should anyone be desperate to add a Mons-turn to their package shelf!
You do have to love Winky (as well as the various wobbly head critters that periodically graced J.C.’s pages and were super-common in the 1960s).
That said, I have to wonder just how many they sold because photos of the actual Winky are few and far between nowadays. Mostly it’s just people posting pictures of the ad from the catalog.
On the other hand, much the same can probably be said of the majority of the accessories purchased through the J.C. Whitney catalog.
I see at least 10 cassettes I’d want to buy, so if JC Whitney can sell me a cassette player and two speakers to go with my FM converter, I’d be set! Being 1979, the only vehicle I had was my street trail dirtbike with it’s 6 volt battery, but still…
Well, here you go, big spender 😉
I actually had one of these too – mine was a Realistic, from the equally late lamented Radio Shack. Unfortunately, it tended to eat about half the tapes I put into it…so I reverted to just FM radio.
Yeah! Winky! In my preteen years I actually saw a bunch of these in the rear windows of the cool kids cars
I spent many hours pouring through JC Whitney, Harbor Freight, and Jegs catalogs in the late 90s instead of paying attention to my class in high school. I can still remember the distinctive smell of the newsprint. I ended up buying an exhaust tip for my truck from JCW which led to their catalogs following me around until they were eventually discontinued.
My friend had a beetle when we were in high school and bought a PaceSetter Monza exhaust from them. Of course it didn’t fit right and we ended up having to bend the pipes to make it work, but it never tucked under the back of the car like it really should have.
Another friend bought a “dixie” horn and it never really worked all that well. I always wanted a Klaxon horn, but never bought one. I’m probably better off for it.
I miss browsing through mail order catalogs even though I rarely bought anything. Looking at webpages just isn’t the same for me.
I was going to mention that Harbor Freight seems to be about the closest thing we now have to J.C. Whitney. The ads/catalog copy is not quite as creative, but the products have that same aura of jankiness, and the cost of most items seem crazy inexpensive.
One difference though is that I actually own a good number of Harbor Freight tools/things. I’m not sure I’d have many J.C. Whitney items even if they were still around.
One…
…two…
…three…
…four!
Exactly.
On another car forum that I’m on, people are frequently recommending HF as a solution for procuring various tools at an affordable price….much to the dismay of Canadian members, who apparently cannot benefit from HF goodness, given the absence of HF in Canada.
All things considered, I’m not so sure they’re really at much of a disadvantage up there.
Aren’t places like Canadian Tire and Princess Auto somewhat analogous to Harbor Fright?
Yes, Crappy Tire and Princess Auto fill Hazard Fraught’s niche up here.
Princess Auto also raises certain eyebrows with their house brand of tools. A subset of those with raised eyebrows then goes looking to see if brand-logo tee shirts are available.
The funny thing about the picture of the 70’s gas crises is that, fast forward 40+ years, people gladly sit in similar lines every morning waiting for coffee. Anyone still using toilet paper oil filters during COVID 19 would have been in a pickle with the TP shortage. I’ve used toilet tissue in place of rolling papers in a pinch. It sort of works but it’s not great.
Thanks for the memories (and the hat tip).
Whitney was always looking for co-op marketing opportunities to monetize their catalogs and customers, whether it was package inserts or catalog ads for the “RCA Music Service” (which I’d never heard of, not to be confused with the much better known Columbia House Record Club).
I still can’t remember whether I ever bought anything from Whitney, but mid-late 1970s would be my peak era for browsing these endlessly; every listing today rings a bell of familiarity.
I also remember the 1970s inflation thing, with prices & wages trying to keep up with one another, and mortgages my younger friends find unbelievable in 2021. The Goverment’s CPI inflation calculator says things have inflated 3.6x since fall 1979, and (looking at the JCW prices) that seems “about right.”
When the producers went to Georgia to start filming The Dukes of Hazzard TV series, a car went by doing the Land Of Dixie tune. They liked it so much, they bought the horns off the guy, on the spot. Of course, J.C. Whitney sales shot through the roof.
I’m only a bit older than this catalog, and… wow. As they say, “the past is a foreign country… they do things differently there.”
From the address on the catalog, the JCW warehouse is long gone, it’s residential now. But if you head a couple blocks west on Archer you are in Chinatown, and there is a KILLER dim sum place in a weird little strip mall on the 2100 block.
The first time I went to Chicago on my own, I was 18 and just out of high school, I fully intended to go find 1917 Archer Avenue. But lacking a car (I’d taken Amtrak to Chicago), I never got there.
And it never has occurred to me until you mentioned it just now that when I go to Chicago Chinatown nowadays that I am just few blocks away from where J.C. Whitney was. I’ve probably been to the dim sum place you reference. I love Lao Sze Chuan which I believe is in that same plaza.
For some reason I had to go to the Whitney store in the mid-70s. I think it may have been to return a set of headers for my Corvair because they didn’t fit. As I recall Whitney had the showroom door on State St. while Warshawsky’s door was on Archer Ave., but it was the same building. It was like a flea market inside, tables piled with returned goods.
The catalog’s Corvair section was two pages in the late-60s but over the next ten or fifteen years it had shrunk down to a half a page.
Sorry, you missed a great experience. Bought from Whitney from the mid 60’s. They were always accurate about filling orders and of course I was careful so I wouldn’t have to send stuff back. Moved to Chicago’s North side in the late 70’s and would sometimes visit their store. Mostly bought parts for my Opel Manta. Bought a replacement horn and Bosch ignition. Seemed like half of Chicago’s DIY car guys would be in the place on a Saturday morning. All lined up with styrofoam coffee cups in hand. Several other parts stores nearby. They did a good business too. Just noticed that they have a new website. I’ll go there at least to check prices. Expect to buy from them in the future.
Count me in as one who read the catalog, but I’m not sure I ever ordered anything. In 2016 I drove across the country and was surprised to see a JC Whitney store or warehouse by the side of Interstate 80. I had assumed JCW was long gone. I just checked online, and it was in Illinois; it closed down in 2019.
Very cool ! Thanks for posting. I remember Dad slapping a locking gas cap on our lovely Aspen back in ’79 and my brother put one of those under-dash FM converters in his 66 Dart. FM through the glorious single dash speaker !
The toilet paper filter ? Yikes ! I can imagine the pulp getting introduced into the oil system. FWIW though, back in the 70s you could get toilet paper in different COLORS!
During the early months of the pandemic when there was a severe shortage of toilet paper, several grocery stores briefly imported brands that were intended for sale in other countries just to have something in stock, with various other languages but no English on the packaging. One of these was Suavel (from Mexico) which had these blue rolls; actually they were white with blue hearts and other decorations but it looks blue from a distance. It was the first colored toilet paper I’d seen in at least 30 years. Perhaps this is sold in stores that cater to Hispanic/Latino customers.
My job involves ordering the toilet paper for a supermarket, not to sell (corporate does that) but for use in our own employee and customer bathrooms in the building. Never had any problems getting that in. People blamed hoarders for the shortage but I think it had more to do with the tens of millions of dumps normally taken in workplaces and schools being suddenly taken at home, coupled with the completely separate roll formats and supply chains for business-to-business and retail-to-consumer.
In ’87-ish I ordered a replacement convertible top for my MG Midget from JCW. Installing it was actually a lot less straightforward than it looked, and was made more annoying by how poorly it was measured and sized. Fortunately(?) its poor construction meant that it didn’t exactly wear like iron, so it was replaced 2 years later with a good quality, properly fitting top from Moss Motors. I got to experience the joy of doing a miserable job twice, but that JCW experience caused me to seek out a better parts source, which I found in Moss. I eventually bought quite a few parts and accessories from them.
I used to love browsing the JCW catalog, just imagining the magical things I could spend money on.
It only now occurs to me – would there be a more worthless use of spray-on zinc coating than to spray the outside of a muffler?
I too, installed an FM converter in my ‘71 Pontiac GrandVille. This was 1980 or ‘81. Mine didn’t come by mail order, but from one of the now defunct discount stores like Harts, Fisher’s Big Wheel, Gold Circle, Woolco or similar. As I recall, it was a Sparkomatic brand and worked pretty well in the city (Columbus OH) but not so well when traveling to my home town in rural southeast Ohio.
I might be in that Rockville, MD gas line picture too – not waiting to buy gas since I was too young to drive, but in the Radio Shack in the background where I’d geek out as long as the store clerks let me (plus got my weekly free battery). It was across the street from Congressional Plaza which is still there unlike Radio Shack.
Yep. That was the Radio Shack where I bought the under-dash cassette player (comment up above), blank reel-to-reel tapes, and spent many an hour with my dad “testing tubes”.
I’d forgotten all about the weekly free battery. Yes indeed. Loved that…it kept my Motorola “all transistor” radio in operation.
And yes, Congressional Plaza. I was there probably several times a week. Particularly because that Giant was my family’s go-to supermarket. My mom – who was born and grew up in upper Montgomery County (Boyds, Germantown. Germantown HS grad.) – loved to remind us that Congressional Plaza “used to be” an airport. (Recall that the Roller Rink was in a converted hanger building) The idea that something could “used to have been” an airport but was now a shopping center fascinated me endlessly.
I was that kind of kid.
Even CEO Can’t Figure Out How Radio Shack Still In Business (The Onion)
My folks got my radio from Radio Shack. I liked the shortwave bands and the aircraft bands. I would come across a numbers station from time to time or hear one half of a conversation from an airliner.
I owned that very same RS radio. Spent more time than necessary listening to 2 meter Ham guys chatting on repeaters. It also picked up a distant county Police radio network. That sometimes made for some hilarious listening.
I wore out the analogue string tuner and was able to get it sent off for repair by a local RS!
I didn’t know until today that Congressional Plaza used to be Congressional Airport; the middle of Rockville Pike/355 is the last place I’d expect an airport to be. But yes, it operated until the mid-1950s and the hangar became the roller rink. There are plenty of pics and stories of both online. The Plaza originally had a Giant Food on the right, a J.C.Penney on the left, and an S.S. Kresge (forerunner of K Mart) somewhere in between. The Giant became a Tower Records and is now a Neiman Marcus Last Call (if they escaped their bankruptcy), and the Penney’s was where the Fresh Market is now. Congressional Plaza also had a terrific googie architecture sign.
The roller rink apparently has some historical significance – when it first opened shortly after the airport closed, only white people were allowed to skate there. In 1961 six African-Americans entered and were arrested for trespassing; all were well-connected legally and their actions helped result in the county prohibiting racial discrimination in public accommodations a year later, two years before the national Civil Rights Act was made into law.
There’s an amusing Radio Shack eulogy from a former employee here: https://www.sbnation.com/2014/11/26/7281129/radioshack-eulogy-stories . It’s difficult to explain to younger folks how crucial Radio Shacks were in their heyday, selling electronic components, adapters, obscure cables and parts, and other things you needed quickly in that pre-Amazon era. Best Buy and the like (when they arrived) weren’t the same; they sold complete items like TVs and washing machines, not resistors, voltmeters, long rolls of telephone wire, and the like.
I didn’t know that either, and I lived in Rockville for a few years and was at Congressional Plaza rather often.
Jeff & ia673,
As a “Monkey County” resident and a regular user of the Pike, I used to buy gas at Finnegans Gulf, but because my family owned a bucket with car wash items, alongside of a water hose, I never used Finnegan’s car wash.
I was also a regular customer at that Radio Shak, because at that time I was a student working towards an Electrical/Electronics degree, and I had a FCC license for a broadcast engineer. Back then, the guys who worked at that store were all “electronics geeks”, and held vast quantities of info in their brains. And guys like me could walk in and buy individual circuit board components like resistors and capacitors, some as cheap as 5 cents.
As for the Congressional Plaza location being a former airport, as mentioned above, it’s quite true. I remember about 1959 or ’60 when I rode in my dad’s 1958 Volvo wagon up to the airport to pick up a visitor who had his own plane. We watched his plane land and taxi up to a location where we drove the Volvo right up to the plane, so dad and his friend could unload his stuff right into the Volvo’s double opening rear doors.
About a half mile north of Congressional Plaza is a McDonald’s. I was told this location was the first McDonald’s on the east coast, and store #5. I can remember walking up to the order window [customers had to stand outside] and place an order for 2 burgers, fries, apple pie, and a large Coke. I got 5 cents back from my $1 payment!
Sorry I missed this comment earlier, so I’ll just come back to say yes, I know that McDonalds well. My mom had always told me it was the “first McDonalds”, which I at the time took to mean first anywhere. Well, it was the first one SHE had ever been to, as a teenager in Monkey County.
Just as important to me is the fact that I believe it was nearly next door to Maryland Motors, the Chrysler-Plymouth dealer where we procured the giant Town and Country wagon in 1971.
I bought the low-priced stick-on rear defroster grid. I peeked off the backing paper from the self-adhesive grid after mticulously cleaning the rear window, then peeled off the carrier paper, leaving the grid stuck to the window. I ran wiring from the dash where I’d installed a switch, and attached the wiring to the terminals on the grid.
When I turned on the power that cool night, the defroster grid generated heat. IT WORKED, though it only covered less than half of the window.
A few days later, the adhesive, softened by the heat, started to let go of the glass. Then, where the grid had lifted from the glass, thus losing the heat sinking action of the cool glass, the thin foil grid overheated and burned out with a flash of light.
So much for that.
The other one, costing more, had two self-adhesive plastic channels which were installed, oriented vertically, at the far left and right of the window. A self-adhesive grid of parallel electric conductors was stuck to the window, overlapping the two plastic channels and overlaying the conductive strips.
A semi-stiff wire was pressed Into the plastic channels, holding down the conductive strips and making a connection to them. My wiring was connected so the current flowed to one wire, through the conductive strips on the window, and out the other side.
This one worked better and lasted about five years before its adhesive also weakened. For a dollar or so more, it was relatively more successful.
In 1967j I got the add-on FM converter. It worked okay except when too close to a transmitter. In my case I could SEE the transmitter a few blocks away. Get too close and I could only listen to one station. THAT one.
The FM converter was stolen from below the dash a few months later, and my next car had an AM-FM radio.
For some reason, the first image that comes to my mind when I think of those add-on defrosters is of cars with a small defroster on a big rear window… like putting a defroster that would fit a Beetle’s rear window on a ’73 Impala instead. Didn’t exactly have the “perfect factory-installed look” as advertised!
Last items I bought from JCW were two sets of seat belts: lap belts for my old IH pickup truck and non-retractible 3-point ones for my ’60 Falcon. I had to install my own nut-and-washer top holders for the shoulder belts – there was no room for inertia reels. I was so pleased with my work I wrote a “how-to” article for the Falcon Club newsletter.
Re: The gas panics of the ’70s– My DD back then was an Austin Mini wagon, the one with wood trim; I was working in what was not yet called Silicon Valley, and on those rare occasions when I needed gas I could count on at least three offers of serious money for the car. The magic words were “Forty miles per gallon”! I did not get that much when I did sell it, but by then it had taken me and my love interest at the time on a nice drive out to Nashville and many miles
more around there.
Used to get those all the time at our house. As I recall, somewhere near 1981 they dried up.
I would love the ocean liner horn and a “winky” for my old thunderbird.
The thing handles like a battleship and the cat would be a great period piece
I put the Air-Electric Diesel Horn in my Spitfire. It was so loud I was afraid to use it.
What great fun to look through these… I could comment on every page, but I’ll just keep it at one:
I find it Interesting that one of the musical horns plays “Bridge on the River Kwai.” I assume the song is the “Colonel Bogey March,” but either way, it wouldn’t be my first guess for an aftermarket horn sound.
Those rust proof spray on coatings really came in handy for those of us who had earlier purchased any chrome plated parts from them. Still have a box of NOS that I bought for my Jeep Commando and didn’t use. On the whole, they were a good value and I would usually check their prices against local ones before making a purchase. I miss them. When I lived in Chicago would visit the Warshawsky store, quite an adventure in itself. There would always be these tables loaded with assorted bargains and would sift through them just for fun.
In the past Warshawsky Bros. was connected with JC Whitney. They also printed a catalog that looked almost the very same page for page, only difference was about 10% less item for item.
I went to the old JC location at State and Archer many times back in the day.
My last visit was to the then new location in LaSalle, IL about 90 miles west of Chicago back in the 1990s…
I have one of these I got on Ebay not long ago. My only recollections of ordering anything was a floor shifter for the manual trans we replaced the Powerslide with in my rustbucket 1954 Chev Convertible. Car got better gas mileage than oil mileage. The only other thing was wheel trim rings for my ’63 Karmann-Ghia convert. Actually looked pretty good; I love steelies with dog dish hubcaps and trim rings.
I was not only a loyal reader, I was an actual customer! Just like Costco doesn’t manufacture their own Kirkland tires out behind their stores, J.C. Whitney sold other manufacturers products. Yes they were usually the lowest quality suppliers, but not always. I bought a complete set of gaskets for my ’57 Cadillac and they were Fel-Pro items. I bought a new plastic rear window for my ’64 Cadillac convertible, and an entire top for my ’65 Chevy Impala SS convertible, both worked out fine. Parts for vintage cars were hard to find locally and they carried parts for all kinds of long dead marques, even Packards. They had a huge selection of custom fit seat covers in different fabrics, but I never made that purchase. Before the internet it was very difficult to source replacement parts for old cars. The problem became the high shipping costs which made buying just a single, or a couple of small items cost prohibitive. Too bad, I missed out on buying that universal floor shift console to put in my ’57 Cadillac. Oh, who doesn’t remember the “engine rebuilding” pellets that you put down the spark plug holes into the cylinders?
Of course! “Engine Rebuilding Pellets”. Just like Bar’s Leaks, only more damaging.
And only equaled by using ‘liquid glass’ to fix a busted head gasket!
https://itstillruns.com/use-liquid-glass-seal-blown-2300964.html
Oh! Jose! As a struggling student whose Dart was burning oil. I saw that J.C.W. item as a solution to my problem. Unfortunately, it did absolutely NOTHING; but it was not nearly as bad a rip off as the Chrysler/Plymouth dealer who charged me for an engine rebuild, that didn’t stop the engine from smoking (valve seals!). Thanks for the memory, LOL!! 🙂
I think that the idea of pouring something into an engine or radiator in the hope of “fixing” it is a sort of developmental stage/milestone for many people. It simply makes sense, until you ultimately figure out that, no, it really doesn’t make sense and will only lead to further more serious problems. Sort of like how kids break things and just push the pieces under the carpet, hoping that no one will notice. We’ve all done it.
Thing is, many of us grow up and move on. The host of J.C. Whitney remedies (and many of the items in the catalog) seem to cater to those drivers who hadn’t yet fully developed.
Perhaps this is why many of us remember the J.C. Whitney catalog as a fascinating item from our youth. It’s not just that it’s an antique, but also that it’s simply more attractive to the young or the young part of our brains. The part where hope springs eternal and our problems and desires can be solved and addressed by something quick, easy, and inexpensive.
Even better if it can be sprayed-on.
This is a terrific post, and an unusual variant of the CC Effect; just last night I was musing on an idea for a post—not like this what you’ve written, but it will surely involve scanned pages from the JC Witless cattledog.
Other eyerollers from the JCW era: “EZ-Rate” shipping that guaranteed you’d pay double or triple the actual packing and shipping costs. Postcards snowing down from the pages, urging you to hurry and send in your $1.00 for a “subscription” to the cattledog—those cost money to print and blow in, which implies enough people were gullible enough to send in the dollar, even though placing an order (or even just saying “JC Whitney” three times) doomed you and whoever-all might eventually live at your address to a perpetual mailstorm of JCW cattledogs.
Groan. Completely-freakin’-dumb-idea-that-refuses-to-die № 6,969,090. Talk about wrong tool for the job!
I subscribed to a computer magazine in the ’90s – you think postcards raining down from the magazine when you first open it were bad, try floppy disks and CDs… EVERY issue had at least one AOL sign-up disk in it somewhere.
Let’s not forget these abominations before the LORD (on second thought…yes, let’s!):
What the???
How do those even work??
That’s pretty much the organizing principle behind much of what’s in the J.C. Whitney catalog.
Poorly; see here.
Or you could just buy a ’58 Studebaker or Packard and get the dual headlight adapters from the factory!
Mercurys too but can’t recall which year.
What about the barefoot accelerator pedal?
Sorry, you missed a great experience. Bought from Whitney from the mid 60’s. They were always accurate about filling orders and of course I was careful so I wouldn’t have to send stuff back. Moved to Chicago’s North side in the late 70’s and would sometimes visit their store. Mostly bought parts for my Opel Manta. Bought a replacement horn and Bosch ignition. Seemed like half of Chicago’s DIY car guys would be in the place on a Saturday morning. All lined up with styrofoam coffee cups in hand. Several other parts stores nearby. They did a good business too. Just noticed that they have a new website. I’ll go there at least to check prices. Expect to buy from them in the future.
Thanks for the great post. Another long time reader and occasional customer of JCW. Including the add on FM tuner for an AM radio. It seemed that a single purchase would keep the catalogs coming for years.
The availability of old car engine parts was sometimes amazing. At least up to about the early 1980’s. Need a reground crankshaft and bearings for an early Chrysler hemi.? Got that. A friend who had driven a Datsun 240Z right into the ground from ’72 to ’85 found a reground cam for that engine at JCW.
My dad and I both got JC Whitney catalogues for years. I still have the last two my dad got in the mail not long before he passed away. He bought from them from the 60’s-90’s and I got things from the 80’s and 90’s. My dad tended to order actual car parts for older vehicles he couldn’t get locally or salvage at the junkyard.
Everything I bought was for my ’67 Sport Fury. I got a replacement blower motor for the heater, the best version of the electric grid rear window defroster after I tried the one that mounted on the rear shelf that worked modestly well for a few months. The grid version lasted about five years before the adhesive came loose. The biggest things I got were full length quarter panel patch panels that turned out to be made by Sherman and Associates and a full vinyl top. If my photo doesn’t post, below is a Flickr link is to a photo of the day my dad and I put the vinyl top on. The quarter panels are already on the car. https://flic.kr/p/2S8wym
The Sparkomatic FM converter I got elsewhere. It wasn’t bad, but was a little fiddly keeping the signal tuned it at the strongest part of the dial.
A bit larger photo I hope.
I first saw their catalogs as a kid in the 60’s, long before I was driving. Gold, great stuff it seemed and very entertaining for hours. 70s and 80s actually bought a few things from them, they were good for really oddball stuff like Simca 1204 tie rod ends. Think I might have gotten some custom fit Toyota Celica seat covers too. Junk, but not much worse than the original upholstery. Flawed, questionable quality, but unique and of some value too. Kind of like old Sears catalogs that had everything from engine rebuild kits to underwear.
Great article; for some reason it also brought back memories of the old DAK electronics catalogs from the 80s. Same over-the-top sales style, I suppose. I actually bought an equalizer from them, and it really wasn’t half-bad. No substitute for Winky, of course, but what is?
Naturally, I was a huge fan of DAK electronics as well. I’d forgotten all about that until you mentioned it. Thanks! (I’ll bet I can find one of those catalogs too…as basement cleaning progresses)
Ohboy, the old DAK cattledogs. Kaplan and/or his minions had a formulaic approach to wordpainting himself as simultaneously folksy and in on all the cutting-edge expert secret knowledge (shhh, it’s a secret!). One element of the formula was that about 98 per cent of the advertisements masquerading as articles in his cattledog masquerading as a magazine started with “It’s [adjective]”.
Like this:
It’s infuriating. Every time I go to take out the trash, one of the bags breaks, and it makes me wonder why nobody’s figured out a better way. Last month I was in Tuvalu looking in on the progress of a new development that’s going to blow the lid off the microphone industry (I’ll tell you all about it as soon as I can, but right now it’s all strictly hush-hush, sorry!) when I literally stumbled upon a whole new way of transporting trash from house to bins with no muss, no fuss, no backbreaking effort, and—get this—no more bags! I was completely fascinated and cancelled all my meetings for the rest of the day. I could tell it was going to be (etc)
I’ve been to the JC Whitney / Warshawsky store to pickup parts only to have them send me to a nearby warehouse that turned out to be a church with the pews removed. I still have a few of they’re parts around. They some times didn’t get put on because the quality was so poor, but the using your engine as an air compressor was a real thing. Obviously pumping petroleum vapor into your tires didn’t help them any, but today simply unplugging an injector would take care of that.. Anyone that has driven past enough construction zones has seen the portable Smith compressors they often use. These are usually Ford V8 (small block or big block) powered, with a special head on one side. They run 4 cylinders on gasoline and the other 4 are the air compressor. Rather ingenious I think and I’ve seen the JC Whitney tool work when Ice racing on the frozen lakes North of Chicago.
Mike Smith,
The Ford V8 compressors you speak of were actually made by the Schramm Brothers from Philadelphia. After WW2 they bought up as many of the war surplus Ford V8 engines as they could, filling multiple warehouses. By the time they had gobbled up most of the military surplus engines, they had been granted the US patents, for the new cylinder heads to turn the V8 into a 4 cylinder gas engine and 4 cylinder air compressor.
Most of the Schramm Ford flathead engines don’t have a Ford factory serial number because they were intended as replacement motors during WW2. Because some of the Ford flathead engines were also used in other stationary engine applications that had special low-power or different crankshaft hookup requirements, those examples were marked with special serial numbers, and Schramm rebuilt them to the standard 60hp engine.
I’m very familiar with the Schramm compressor story, I actually own one that was never sold when new, & stored in a long closed hardware & marine supply store, where I found it in 2016. It’s only got 6 hours on the hour meter! My plans are to put a vintage axle under it, attach a tow hitch, and take it to vintage car shows.
The photo is the cover of the Schramm compressor manual that came with my unit.
Here’s an example of the Schramm Fordair compressor, featured in the manual.
Thanks Bill for posting that. The Schramm compressor is an interesting concept to me. It seems that they’re a bit overkill for a compressor, but perhaps were relatively inexpensive (and thus attractive) due to the use of the war surplus engines?
Jeff,
At the time these were popular, almost all the other compressors in use were driven by a power source, either gasoline motor or electric motor. The 2 units, motor and compressor, were connected by V-belts. This type of coupling resulted in a significant loss of power, and the belts were always failing. And if the power source & compressor were not well-matched, that caused even more problems. If you watch modern videos of third world situations, you can see what happens when a compressor is too large for the motor to drive it, and vice versa.
The Schramm Fordair solved these problems.
I think the last time I can recall looking at one of their catalogs was about three years after getting my first car making it 1972, I’m pretty sure it was about that time where I realized they sold nothing but junk.
My father used to get the JC Whitney catalog for imports, and I poured through it regularly, though probably by that time, he no longer owned the ’59 Beetle which was his first import. The majority of the items in the catalog were for the Beetle…for some reason even though we owned a domestic wagon, we never got the domestic JC Whitney catalog (that I recall). Many years later I did buy some parts (probably for my ’86 GTi) from Whitney, but they were replacement parts, nothing of a novelty nature.
I also did a lot of shopping at Radio Shack, but nothing for my car (whoops, take that back, I did install a cassette tape deck in my Dad’s new ’80 Dodge Omni from Radio shack). I bought many of their electronic kits as a hobbyist.
Also bought a car radio for my Datsun, but not at Radio Shack…mine was bought at Lafayette (they even had a store up in Essex Junction in the 70’s). The Datsun had no stock radio, just a slot where it would go…also picked up an A pillar mount antenna from the dealer. It was even an AM/FM (though not stereo).
Would have liked to have visited the Whitney store in Chicago, but by the first time I travelled there as an adult in the 90’s (probably was also there as an infant) they were either gone or on their way out.