KPH speedo's

[Belair62]

I agree about George O...he freshened up the underside of my Y Camaro a couple years ago. Steve it's great to have such a well established and knowledgeable parts supplier sponsor this site. Thanks

[William]

Hoo boy, Rudser!! Aka Lo-Gross or Wholesale Larry, he was a character. I remember him circa January 1984 in line at Bill Jacobs. It's 15º and most of us have coffee; Larry has a Bud.

Speaking of GM parts availability I doubt the motoring public knew that GMPD Canada was not the same as GMPD US. Parts that were n/a here sometimes were still in the books there and vice versa. The real angle was prices were often different, sometimes dramatically. We used to buy 69-70 Chevelle exhaust tips by the dozen and parcel them out profitably to other vendors under US dealer net. There were all sorts of other angles: buying the $8 truck AM/FM antenna accessory kit that was mostly the same stuff used on cars, getting new 480 distributors direct from Delco for $100 less than GMPD, wheels direct from Kelsey. One odd part was the 69-70 deep groove alternator pulley. It was actually made for aviation use; buy direct for about 1/2 of GMPD wholesale. There was also some angle on COPO Camaro upper radiator hoses but I do not remember what it was. For a while we had a lot of them.

One of of my jobs was going through the P & A price book the day it arrived looking for parts that had gone non-returnable. That was a good indication they were still available but discountinued. Sometimes they just forgot the R which is how we ended up with 40 pair of 69 Chevelle front fenders.

But for every angle you found GMPD would have one for you. Order 69 Camaro 396 emblems and receieve 70 Nova 396 emblems, 1-piece rotors were sent under the 2-piece part number, 68 Z/28 rocker covers became chromed 69s, etc. If it fit and functioned that was good enough for GM. Although sheet metal was still available in the early 90s the fit was very poor, heard lots of complaints.

[John Brown]

Not only were the 1111480 distributors cheaper direct from Delco, they were still available after Chevy was sold out. (I was working for a warehouse at the time.) The last one I got from Delco was a restamp from the factory. Sold it in the blue stamped Delco (not a label) box as a core last year. I also had friends at several GM dealerships that were on different inventory systems who would give me a copy of their printouts or let me search on their computer system. I used to pull obsolete parts from dealer stock all over the country. Could buy Holley carbs cheaper from Roy Johnson than we could get them direct from Holley too. Not many people were aware of the date stamps back then either. Wish I had it all back to sell at todays prices!!

[William]

The Delco piece I should have a case of is distributor housings-cheap and unstamped. We supplied them to someone..

All breaker point stuff went away one day, just like that.

[Mr70]

I remember over buying a lot of new GM parts between 1979-86 when driveway restoring a few Chevelles..I usually went back to Long Chevrolet or C&E in Elmhurst and got a full refund or credit and feeling good about it.
Seeing how much those same parts are selling for today..I feel sick.

[Steve Drueck]

Billy good point ! Yes we too ordered Rally wheel centers and Chevelle exh tips by the dozens, it was more a situation where GM set the price and then forgot to make adjustment for the USD CAD currency changes. In 2002 if you swapped $100K into Canadian dollars and held them until today you would get back almost $140,000. (A tip of the hat to our friends up north!)
http://finance.yahoo.com/currency/co...amt=1&t=5y The reality is that muscle cars and real estate aren't really going up in "value", your dollar is worth less, and it takes more to buy everything. This is why a lot of wealthy investors buy expensive classic cars, precious metals , and real estate, because if they sit on cash it loses value just sitting in a CD. Oh the days of $28 rally wheel center caps, now they are over $100 list at GM ....yikes!