Forest City Auto Parts
Forest City Auto Parts was a retailer of automotive parts and supplies headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio.[1] The company specialized in selling hard parts and a wide variety of maintenance items. Forest City had extensive inventories using the phrase “Stop Looking! The odds are we have it.”[1] They also used a unique and very memorable logo of a long-necked man called “Max” which was named after the maximum value that Forest City provided all of their customers. Because of the long neck, this logo reinforced the idea of “Stop Looking.” Forest City provided a high level of customer service because of their knowledgeable store personnel.[1][2] Forest City had multiple registered trademarks including the private label brands of Maxway and Maxway Plus automotive products.[3]
History
Forest City Auto Parts was founded by Albert Bellowe in 1927 with a single store in Akron, Ohio called South Main Auto Parts. By the mid 1950’s, Albert Bellowe was joined by his son Stanley Bellowe and soon thereafter his other son Arnold Bellowe joined the business as well. By the mid 1960’s Albert relinquished control to his two sons. In 1961 Forest City added[1][4] their second location in Cleveland, Ohio which had the name of Forest City Auto Parts.
By 1969, Forest City Auto Parts bought 7 existing stores across northern Ohio. Purchasing existing businesses was a slow and tedious process. In order to expand more quickly and efficiently, the brothers decided to set up all future locations themselves from scratch.
Up until the 1970’s auto parts stores were typically a ‘mom & pop’ type of business. Each auto parts store was normally individually owned by someone living in the neighborhood, and there were very few auto parts chains. As a result, Forest City was among the top 10 auto parts chains in the country for most of those years.
Throughout the 70’s, Forest City added many new locations in Ohio, Pennsylvania & New York. In 1978, Stanley Bellowe’s son Gary Bellowe added the first store within their new market of Chicago. He officially joined the company in 1980 and expanded the Illinois and Wisconsin locations.
By the end of 1981, the company had 31 location[1][4] in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Illinois. The majority of the expansion in the 80’s was in the lucrative Chicago area. Forest City expanded to Milwaukee during the 90’s by taking over a small existing chain.[1] At its peak in 1997, Forest City operated 71 stores[1], and had 787 employees[1] within 5 States.[1] Forest City Auto Parts was sold in 1991 to the Tyler Corporation.[5][6][7]
In 1998, Forest City planned an aggressive growth strategy[8] but never materialized since Tyler Corporation sold Forest City Auto Parts to HalArt LLC in 1999.[9] . HalArt then bought Trak Auto[9] to operate alongside Forest City and other automotive chains. This venture failed and HalArt filed for bankruptcy in July 2001.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 "Security and Exchange Commission". SEC.gov. SEC. Retrieved June 30, 2021.
- ↑ "That Forest City Auto Parts Guy". Brady's Bunch of Lorain County Nostalgia.
- ↑ "Forest City Autocrats Trademarks". trademarks.justia.com. Justia Trademarks. Retrieved January 18, 2022.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Security and Exchange Commission". Market Watch. Retrieved June 30, 2021.
- ↑ "Form DEF 14A Tyler Technologies Inc". SEC.report. Retrieved June 30, 2021.
- ↑ "Tyler Corporation History". Funding Universe. Retrieved June 30, 2021.
- ↑ "Tyler Corporation". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved August 2, 2022.
- ↑ "Getting It In Gear: Auto Parts Chain To Embark On Major Expansion Plan". crainscleveland.com. Crain's Cleveland. Retrieved January 18, 2022.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 "Restoration Auto Products". The Standard. Archived from the original on 2001-05-23. Retrieved 2021-07-12.CS1 maint: Unfit url (link)
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