How a 1965 Vauxhall Viva launched Collectors Auto Supply

Collectors Auto Supply can trace its roots to a 1965 Vauxhall Viva – and the search for parts by its owner, Jim Carpenter of Peachland, British Columbia.

Let’s go back to 1965, when Jim’s father bought a new Envoy Epic.

The Epic was manufactured in England, but sold only in Canada. The Epic was a slightly modified version of the Vauxhall Viva, which was produced by Vauxhall of England, a subsidiary of General Motors. The Viva was designed to compete with the Volkswagen Beetle. The Viva, slightly smaller and cheaper than a Beetle, was exported to Canada starting in 1963. The Viva was a hit at Pontiac-Buick dealers in Canada – so much so that Chevrolet-Oldsmobile dealers also wanted to have a small, economical import in their showrooms. So in 1964 the Envoy Epic was created. It was essentially a Viva with a different grill and taillights.

“The Epic was our family car for about ten years, and then it became my car in 1975 when it had about 75,000 miles on it,” Jim recalls. “It needed some work on the carburetor. I found a 1965 Vauxhall Viva with a good carburetor, but it was a little smashed up and some of the glass was broken.”

Jim paid $40 for the Viva and drove it home.

“Then I got another Viva given to me, so I fixed the $40 Viva with the parts from the free one. Then I sold the Epic for $400 and used that money to take electronics at the British Columbia Institute of Technology.”

Jim was always on the lookout for parts for his Viva, as well as his other old cars, including his grandmother’s 1954 Dodge Regent. One time when he was looking for points for the Viva at a swap meet, he found a large box labeled VIVA, which included a set of points, among other things.

“It was 10 bucks for the whole box of parts. Well, a set of points for a Viva at the time was about seven dollars. I realized I had a lot of extra parts. So I got a book, and figured out what all these extra parts were,” he says.

Then he started selling the parts he didn’t need.

He also started buying other old cars. For example, in 1980 he bought a used Opel GT. It looked a bit like a mini-Corvette, and was produced by GM’s subsidiary in Germany. The Opel shared some components with the British-made Vauxhall Viva.

“I got very passionate about finding parts – and I got better at finding parts than some parts guys. That evolved into this business,” he explains.

Jim worked at BC Tel, later Telus, for 20 years, as he saw his hobby business grow. He was tracking down parts from across North America – and found customers throughout North America. He was an early adapter in using an Apple IIc computer to keep track of his inventory, and using the internet and eBay to reach customers.

He collected several cars over the years, and among those in his collection today are a 1939 Oldsmobile, 1962 Pontiac Parisienne convertible, 1965 Pontiac Parisienne convertible, and a 1951 Cadillac convertible that was used by Queen Elizabeth (when she was Princess Elizabeth) and Prince Philip during the royal tour in the fall of 1951. All of Jim’s cars have a story behind them – including his 1965 Vauxhall Viva that got him started in the old car parts business.

“I had a huge inventory over 30 years, I had more than 100,000 parts in boxes. I would buy out dealerships and go to swap meets. There was stuff everywhere.”

He would be on the phone on lunch breaks, evenings and weekends buying and selling parts.

“Once a week I would make a trip to the U.S. to pick up and drop off parts.”

The part-time, home-based business grew, and in 2002 Jim left his day job to go into the car supply business full time. But after more than three decades, Jim decided it was time to retire.

“I was working at it very hard and I was getting older, so I wanted to sell it.”

In the fall of 2016, Jim sold Collectors Auto Supply to brothers Chris and Mike Ware, the current owners.

“We were looking for an opportunity to build a business focussed on the passions of our customers,” explains Chris. “We liked this business because the opportunities the business offered were a fit for our skills and experience, with our backgrounds in customer service, operations, project management and technology implementations.”

They saw it as an ideal opportunity to build on what Jim had already done.

“Jim did a great job putting the nuts and bolts of the business together and we saw an opportunity to fill in the gaps and grow the business into a household name in the collector community,” says Chris.

One of the biggest changes they made after buying Collectors Auto Supply was shutting down the NOS side of the business.

“It wasn’t profitable. This was big for us, as it allowed us to add tens of thousands of products to our online offerings,” Chris explains.

Another change is making more use of the newest technologies. While most firms these days have websites and use social media, Chris says they’re using their computer expertise to do far more.

“What is different about us is connecting with our community and building an online platform for these people to connect through. We want our company to be a place where our customers get great service, the right part the first time, and have fun interacting with us in the process. We are using technology and our previous business experience to create something that doesn’t currently exist in our community/industry. We want to make our website a platform for our community to connect through, and be entertained.”

“Jim is creative and has a knack for knowing what the car community needed. He spent years connecting with guys who had thousands of parts that he knew people needed and were hard to find. Jim found a way to get the information onto the internet in a searchable database by part number before shopping on the internet was popular. Without the years of him building this business, we wouldn’t have had this opportunity to do what we are doing now,” he adds.

While Chris and Mike Ware have already made dramatic changes at Collectors Auto Supply – and more are coming – Chris says one thing they won’t change is that Collectors will always be the best place for car buffs anywhere to get hard-to-find classic car parts.