Beverly Hills Car Club

[Dottore]

This is a classic car shop on Worth St in LA.

Anyone have any scuttlebut on these guys?

Good or bad...any comments much appreciated.

[craigster59]

First off, it's nowhere near Beverly Hills. Quite the opposite, in an industrial area in East L.A. Not the greatest neighborhood if you know what I mean....

[Noah930]

No FHE. Never heard of them. But what I've noticed being a native Angeleno, the more a company pushes the Beverly Hills angle, the less it seems to have any connection to Beverly Hills. There are exceptions, but those are usually institutions that are household names.

[R K T]

Never heard of them when I lived in LA. Easy to name your business Beverly Hills _____.
I ran a store called Beverly Hills Motoring Accessories back in the 80s-90s....we were actually IN Beverly Hills! Our customers were all actors, pro athletes and rock stars, with a few normal people occasionally!

[Noah930]

I remember that store over on Robertson. Yes, at least you had a BHPO.

[Dottore]

OK. I'm getting a vibe....

[dafischer]

I've been wondering about them. They have a lot of ads in Hemming's, and their ads sound a lot like those from Gullwing Motor Cars in NY, who also have a lot of ads in Hemming's.

Gullwing always advertises stuff like "ready for restoration", "barn find", "sitting in garage for years", "needs cosmetic restoration", "solid car", etc. I've got no experience (or heard bad reports) with Gullwing, but their ads seem kind of scheister-ish to me. I wonder if BHCC is their western branch?

Sounds like a lot of flipping of low buck purchases (questionable vehicles) for too many bucks to me.

IMHO, of course. And I'm not in the biz, just read Hemming's a lot.

[Embraer]

they had a 308 GT4 that looked like it had been beaten pretty hard. seemed like a crappy place and my spidey sense was triggered.

[Embraer]

Originally Posted by dafischer

I've been wondering about them. They have a lot of ads in Hemming's, and their ads sound a lot like those from Gullwing Motor Cars in NY, who also have a lot of ads in Hemming's.

Gullwing always advertises stuff like "ready for restoration", "barn find", "sitting in garage for years", "needs cosmetic restoration", "solid car", etc. I've got no experience (or heard bad reports) with Gullwing, but their ads seem kind of scheister-ish to me. I wonder if BHCC is their western branch?

Sounds like a lot of flipping of low buck purchases (questionable vehicles) for too many bucks to me.

IMHO, of course. And I'm not in the biz, just read Hemming's a lot.

Gullwing has been around for many many years...i remember reading their ads in hemmings back in the mid-90's. always seemed high priced for what they were selling.

[agrimmitt]

I have seen some ad's from them in Dupont for quote "restored" or collection cars, most look dogish or original color was grey now it red??? I think you getting the general as you put it "vibe"
art

[speeder]

What do they have that caught your eye? Maybe one of us could go take a look at it for you.

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by R K T

Never heard of them when I lived in LA. Easy to name your business Beverly Hills _____.
I ran a store called Beverly Hills Motoring Accessories back in the 80s-90s....we were actually IN Beverly Hills! Our customers were all actors, pro athletes and rock stars, with a few normal people occasionally!

And I think BHMA had the best car covers on the market. Gold plated license frames I didn't need so much.

I've always wanted to ask, were the covers proprietary or is the vendor still around?

[TRE Cup]

One of the principals of BHMA split off and founded California Car Cover. They sell on line and have a store in Chatsworth. Same line of covers and long list of patterns.
I've often wondered if they buy all their product from Covercraft Industries, just down the block from them

[Dottore]

Originally Posted by speeder

What do they have that caught your eye? Maybe one of us could go take a look at it for you.

Thanks. A friend of mine from Switzerland has had some strange exchanges with these guys, and I was inquiring here on his behalf.

[R K T]

All the covers were from Covercraft. We stocked over 2000 custom covers at the store, so we were able to ship the customers cover the same day as ordered. Then we set up a deal with CC to drop ship directly from them to the customer.
We were the first retailer for Ruf parts in the US as well as AMG. The AMG showroom was across the street from the BHMA showroom. I remember getting to drive the AMG Hammer out to Pomona Drag Strip for a Motor Trend article and photo shoot. Incredible car.
In 1987 we were doing 1.7 mil a month in sales. The two owners of BHMA were longtime friends but got to a point that they couldn't agree on anything. One wanted to start selling accessories for SUVs and trucks and the other wanted to stay exclusive to high end European cars. As Dave said, they split and one of them started Cal Car covers and is doing great. BHMA sold to a business group in 92 or 93 and lasted less than a year. I was literally the kid in the candy store working there. As a teenager I would hang out at places like MG Mitten and Villem B Haan and dream about working for a place like them.
Too bad it's gone......

[kaisen]

I loved BHMA and still have a couple catalogs from the mid eighties around (somewhere). I recall euro W123 headlights, AMG hard-parts, Recaro seats, little pillow cars with working wheels, and pedal cars that were as much as a used car. Stuff dreams are made of!

[Zeke]

Wow, MG Mitten. We're digging up some old and cool names. We ought to start a separate thread.

[R K T]

Originally Posted by Zeke

Wow, MG Mitten. We're digging up some old and cool names. We ought to start a separate thread.

MG Mitten was a great place run by true car enthusiasts....As was Haan. I read something not too long ago that Vilem is still living in the Valley, must be in his late 80s.
I occasionally see a page, not the whole catalog, just one page from Haan's catalog go up on ebay. Classy stuff.
I've got some old Road&Track magazines from the mid 60s and Mg Mittens little ad had things like Heuer stopwatches for $39.00! I bought a pair of knit driving gloves from them for something like $6.95!
BHMA produced a "fresh" catalog every 3 months. A lot of the same things but always some new, got to have items....like the $20,000 gold license plate frames....we actually sold a couple!!!!!!!!!

[speeder]

Yeah, MG Mitten and Villem B. Haan. Unavoidable names if you read car mags back in the '60s and '70s, they had big ads in every issue of R&T and C&D back then. They sold a lot of coco mats and other (usually) high quality motoring accessories, as they liked to call their products. I associate VBH with driving gloves for some reason. Sweet memories of being a child dreaming about cars in magazines.

[56 nomad]

Originally Posted by R K T

Never heard of them when I lived in LA. Easy to name your business Beverly Hills _____.
I ran a store called Beverly Hills Motoring Accessories back in the 80s-90s....we were actually IN Beverly Hills! Our customers were all actors, pro athletes and rock stars, with a few normal people occasionally!

not to hijack this thread but many non celebrities patronized your store I used to buy regularly and loved the parking lot sale where i bought 3 Saratoga tops for 100 or 125 a pop, new in the boxes with small imperfections i could never find...don't have them anymore so please don't pm me about them. those were the days, ben