Pep Boys
 |
| Company type | Public (NYSE: PBY) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Specialty retail and automotive repair |
| Founded | 1921 |
| Headquarters | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
Key people | Jeffrey Rachor, President & CEO Maurice (Moe) Strauss, Emanuel (Manny) Rosenfeld, and W. Graham (Jack) Jackson, founders |
| Products | Auto parts and service |
| Website | www.pepboys.com |
Pep Boys Manny Moe & Jack (NYSE: PBY) is a full-service automotive aftermarket chain. In 1921, Emanuel (Manny) Rosenfeld, Maurice L. (Moe) Strauss, and W. Graham (Jack) Jackson opened the first "Pep Auto Supplies" store in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They took the original name from a product carried in the store, called "Pep Valve Grinding Compound."
A neighborhood cop may have led to the name change "Pep Boys." As the story goes, every time he stopped a car that didn't have an oil wick burning, he would tell the driver to go see "the boys down at Pep." The "Manny, Moe and Jack" portion of the name was added after Manny and Moe visited California and saw a dress shop called "Minnie, Maude and Mabel's." Manny and Moe's visit to California also started a new market for the company. Manny's brother Murray Rosenfeld opened the West Coast operation in 1933 and Pep Boys began to grow on both sides of the country. The company reached about 159 stores around 1986.
Pep Boys today
Pep Boys currently has 593 stores and over 6,000 service bays in 36 states of the US and Puerto Rico. Along with its vehicle repair and maintenance capabilities, the company also serves the commercial auto parts delivery market and is one of the leading sellers of replacement tires in the United States. Pep Boys is America's leading automotive aftermarket retail and service chain, with billions of dollars in aftermarket sales. To support this demand, Pep Boys currently has five DCs (Distribution Centers) located throughout the U.S. These DCs are located in: Bensalem, PA; New York; Atlanta, Georgia; Dallas, Texas; Indianapolis, Indiana; and San Bernardino, California.
Notes
- For many years, the icon of the three Pep Boys portrayed one of them with a cigar in his mouth. During the 1990s, the cigar was removed.
- On his television show, Jack Benny's famous violin is discovered to be from The Pep Boys.
- In Halloween Special of The Simpsons, all of Springfield's ad icons came alive (as a consequence of Homer's robbing the giant "Lardlad"—a parody of Bob's Big Boy—of one of his donuts), wreaking havoc all over the city. A cartoon of old Manny, Moe and Jack ones (here called the "Zip Boys") wasn't the exception, but the trio capsized due to their huge heads. (They eventually managed to regain their balance and move around, but did no more harm than scaring some people).
- In the Spike Jones 1940's rendition of a song called "My Old Flame", which frequently appears on compilation CDs, voice actor Paul Frees is running through a list of names, trying to recall the name of his "old flame": "Doris? Laura? Chloe? Manny, Moe, Jack? (pause) No, it couldn't have been Moe."
- Manny Moe and Jack mentioned as Mr. Binny's(Neighbor to the Rileys) turtles in 1948 06/19_Father’s_Day_Bathrobes in Life of Riley radio episode
- The Pep Boys are referenced in the somewhat obscure but nonetheless hilarious Frank Zappa song "The Uncle Meat Variations" (1969): "Fuzzy dice & bongos / FUZZY DICE / I got 'em at the Pep Boys . . . at the BOYYYYYYYYS."
- In 1979, the punk rock band The Dickies released an album entitled Dawn of the Dickies, which included a song entitled "Manny, Moe and Jack". The song was effectively a free advertisement for the company and was used as a B-side for the band's single release of "Nights in White Satin".
- In the MMORPG World of Warcraft, a quest involves finding three Peons called "Manni, Moh and Jakk" to fix a Shredder. The names are an obvious reference to Manny, Moe and Jack. [1]
- In Daniel Pinkwater's novel Alan Mendelson, the Boy from Mars, the three Neptunians in control of Lenny, the capital city of Wakka-Wakka, are named Manny, Moe, and Jack.
- In the violent graphic novel Hard Boiled (comic) (Miller/Darrow/LeGris) a parody of the Pep Boys is depicted in Issue 1, page 31, as the Pup Boys, complete with dog-like appearance.
- In 2007, Pep Boys began sponsoring NASCAR driver Sterling Marlin's No. 14 car owned by Ginn Racing.
- In 2007, Pep Boys will be sponsoring the Pep Boys Auto 500 at The Atlanta Motor Speedway October 28th.