Pep Boys 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. |
