Is a Ford From the Past in Your Future? Here’s Some Help
Clyde and Gail Bangiola run an auto parts store. Well, not just any auto parts store. They specialize in parts for Fords. Early Fords.
Need a radiator grille for your 1940 DeLuxe Ford Coupe? A headliner for a ’35 Ford sedan? Rear-view mirror for your ’39 Ford pickup? A fuel pump for your ’48 Ford? They’ve got window lift channel weatherstripping, dash knobs, fire wall rommets, hood ornaments and windshield wiper blades. When it comes to mechanical parts, C & G (as in Clyde and Gail) Early Ford Parts just about has it all for Fords manufactured between 1932 and 1956.
Though the number of Fords on the road from that era isn’t increasing, the demand for replacements is on the rise, say the Bangiolas. That demand is keeping them in business both in their San Marcos industrial park base and on the road, in a custom-designed, 32-foot trailer that serves nicely as a porta-store.
They’re spending this weekend, for instance, in the parking lot of San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium for an annual automotive swap meet. Every six weeks or so, they head up to the Pomona Fairgrounds near Los Angeles for an automotive swap meet there.
Their customers range from old folks who never let go of their early Ford and drive it to this day, to hobbyists who tinker in the garage, passionately restoring old Fords, to more serious automotive buffs who buy and sell old classics with all the fever of commodities brokers.
“I’ve had Fords all my life,” Clyde Bangiola said. “Oh, I had a couple of Chevys but I hated them. They’re all right, I guess, but I grew up with Fords. Dad drove Fords, and I ran Ford stock cars on the oval tracks.”
So the one-time service station owner decided to make his mistress his profession, and with his wife’s support he opened an early Fords parts dealership in 1978 in Morris Plains, N.J. Three years later, he used his 1936 1 1/2-ton Ford wrecker to tow a 31-foot trailer across the country to San Marcos. “The hills were a little tough,” he deadpanned about pulling the loaded, 18,000-pound trailer 3,000 miles.
At their new location, the Bangiolas fill mail-order requests, handle walk-in business and stock the trailer for weekend swap meets. He does some mechanical restoration work on old Fords but says he has more work than he can get to.
The couple specialize in parts for the years from 1932--when the four-cylinder Model A gave way to the V-8--through 1956, when the supply of remanufactured parts starts to dwindle. Few of the parts are original equipment. Most are produced by manufacturers who have retooled their factories to spit out enough parts to keep the old cars on the road, Bangiola said.
In fact, it would be easier to find a Ford part for a ’39 coupe than, say, a ’71 van because parts manufacturers have not yet concentrated on more recent Fords and the existing warehouse supply of original equipment parts is drying up, Bangiola said.
It’s a different matter, though, when it comes to body parts, which are not remanufactured, he noted. Customers have the option of hammering out dents in their doors or fenders, for instance, or undertaking a nationwide scavenger hunt in the specialty magazines for the piece they need--sometimes having to buy an entire car to cannibalize it.
Old parts outlets like his are not unusual, Bangiola said. He figures there are 200 stores stocking remanufactured Ford parts around the country, advertising in specialty magazines and promoting themselves through car club networks.
But the demand for old parts, he says, is greater in California “because out here, people are driving their cars around town, and every 5 or 10 years they decide to restore the car again. Back East, they just put their old cars in storage.”
It’s not just old Ford restorers who frequent the couple’s shop, however. Nostalgia buffs might find just that missing item for their coffee table collection: An original Ford dealer’s slick sales brochure for a 1940 Fordoor V-8 convertible club coupe with such brand new features as steering column gear shift, window vents, dual windshield wipers and two--count ‘em, two--ashtrays. A little bit of history for four bucks.
