South Tacoma Way hosted a few shops that were very popular and also blocks of each other. When I initially visited these shops, they did not have much in a sense of serious parts. Mostly audio, alarm and lights. As the Import scene took off and companies started to do better, these shops started to stock big parts and expensive stuff.
Fastlane – there were 2 Fastlane shops, appropriately Fastlane 1 and 2. Fastlane 1 was the furtherest and at the edge of South Tacoma Way. I remember one of the regular guys there was always an ass to people (I felt that too) I think his name was Ray. He had horrible customer service.
Fastlane 2 was closer to the other shops on S. Tacoma Way. Actually this shop had a few cool guys and one of the main guys was Matt. I bought a few things from here for both my EG and EK.
International Motorsports or IMS, was along a small shop. Joe (if I remember his name correctly) was a good guy. He had a Supra and had model cars lined up on his back wall.
Speedline – was owned by Kyle and was one of the first shops I visited. It was one of my favorite shops because the guys there became really cool Nate and EJ were the guys I knew first. Zol and I met there one afternoon. We knew each other from high school and we were both going to Pierce College not too far away. We talked cars as he had his Legend and I had my civic. This brought about how I joined Team Reaction.
A shop I visited from time to time was Ultraspeed in Seattle. If I could say rich guys… that shop would be it. Ultraspeed was known for their high end cars. RX7s, Supras, MR2s and the owner did an Evo replica on a Mirage. I also think they showed off the 1st Skyline in Seattle that was from Motorex.
Ultraspeed got caught up in some illegal stuff. I kept hearing that they were dealing ecstasy. I don’t know if everyone was or if they busted the shop with drugs…but it was pretty big news.
When drifting started to take off, one shop came up big. Drift Office in Renton. This was in 2005. Bob was a somehow attached to gaming or Microsoft. He decided to open up a drift shop and it was big. I was there for the Grand Opening.
There were tons of other PNW shops I visited. One was Racing Concepts in Lynnwood. I can’t remember all the others I visited. There was one in Renton, Federal Way, Kent….
SPEED CONCEPT (when the owner was Tony) in Aloha, Oregon
After show up at race events and car shows. Speed Concept owner Tony came up to us. He said he would sponsor our crew. Our discount was I believe AT COST!
We just had to represent Speed Concept.
Seriously, we would go in groups to Speed Concept to buy stuff. It was far, but worth it if we bought stuff.
Here was the thing about Speed Concept – He was the supplier for many of the shops mentioned above. These shops would order from him!!!
I don’t know when he sold his shop, but all I know was that he saved many of us money and got us tons of parts.
I lost my Speed Concept pictures, but I got this from offline.
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