Wheel sales
Roadside riches The Blackburn family is turning selling refurbished OE wheels and hubcaps into a national enterprise By Bob Bissler
J
im Blackburn Sr. is a man who doesn’t pass up an opportunity. And it was opportunity that took him from being an Archway cookie truck driver to the owner of a leading provider of new, used and refurbished OE wheels and hubcaps. In the 1960s and ’70s, he often saw lost hubcaps and wheel covers along the roadsides of northeast Ohio. But he saw more than hubcaps. He saw opportunity. “I would stop and pick up hubcaps I’d see at the side of the road,” he explains. “The business was founded around 1970, because that’s when I started selling them on the weekends at flea markets and swap meets. I opened the first actual store in 1985.” That first location eventually became four locations, all in Macedonia, Ohio. Besides being strategically Blackburn (left) and brother Jimmy (right) worked weekends located near the metropolitan areas of Akron and Torrey and summers as children with their father Jim Sr. (center) at BlackCleveland, the city of Macedonia is the Blackburn burn’s Hubcap & Wheel in Macedonia, Ohio. family’s hometown. Eventually, Jim Sr.’s sons Jimmy and Torrey joined the family business. Jim Sr. says he’s retired, but he’s at the business nearly every Both boys grew up working summers and weekends with day. He still stops for hubcaps and wheel covers along the roads. their father. Jimmy came on full-time in 1993, followed by All those hubcaps and wheels have added up over the years. Torrey in 1996. Today Jimmy and Torrey are co-owners of Along with the need for additional space, Blackburn’s had to Blackburn’s Hubcap & Wheel Inc. evolve with changing markets. The business had always been a The company has evolved into a wholesale operation that retail operation, but now the company is mainly wholesale. To provides new, used and high-quality refurbished hubcaps and handle increasing volumes of inventory, the company moved wheels. With fast shipping, Blackburn’s is a one-stop source into a new 155,000-square-foot building in 2010 just one mile for the wheel needs of any retailer repairing cars. away from the old location. The new facility has 7,000 square feet of office space. How does a small retailer of hubcaps and wheels evolve into a wholesale enterprise? In Blackburn’s case, it had a lot to do with changes in the way people started to rely on their local tire and service center. “Once upon a time we were 95% retail-oriented,” explains Jimmy. “When we changed our focus and became more wholesale oriented, we started to supply tire and service centers. That’s where the real change started to occur.” Jimmy says that was in the early 1990s. The industry evolved out of wheel covers into aluminum alloy wheels. After 1995, Cadillac had no hubcaps. “There was a mind set change at that point where a retail customer was used to going to a Blackburn’s custom-made conference room table features some of the fam- hubcap center and buying a wheel cover, and ily’s favorite hubcaps and wheels collected over the years by Jim Sr. they could just snap it on,” Jimmy explains.
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