About Us

In June, 1975 I joined the Army at the young age of 19 and was trained as a UH-1H (Huey) helicopter mechanic. These are the now infamous guppy looking helicopters that you see in Viet Nam movies dropping off troops in the battle areas. After being honorably discharged in 1978, I had various jobs fixing general aviation airplanes at Van Nuys airport until becoming a set painter for the movie studios in 1979. I worked for Universal Studios on movies and TV shows but work was sporadic at best. On my days off I would walk to the local 7-11 by crossing through my neighbor's backyard in which sat a 1964 Silver Mink Thunderbird Hardtop. I always stopped to look in the window and admire the design and originality of the gauges. One day I was in need of a car and offered the owner $750. This was the first T-bird I ever owned.

At that time I was not a trained auto mechanic and learned the hard way about trusting local repair shops. I even ended up in small claims court! Eventually, I decided to buy a parts car and fix my car myself. In 1982 I attended National Technical Schools in Los Angeles full time and received my degree in Automotive Technology one year later.

I bought my first parts car, a 1964 hardtop, in Studio City, Ca. right around the corner from my house. Once I removed the parts I needed for my car I placed an ad in the Recycler and parted out the rest of the car. As I sold the parts, the buyers started asking me if I could install them. One thing lead to another and in July of 1984 I opened up T-birds by Nick as a small repair shop in North Hollywood.

Since then I moved my shop to Canoga Park in 1986 and then to Van Nuys in 1993 where we are today. We started out just doing repairs but expanded into the mail order business of Thunderbird parts and today we ship to customers all over the world.

All the parts we sell over the counter or via our mail order business are the same parts we install on my customers Thunderbirds so you can rest assured that they are of the best quality to be found. I've been doing this for 27 plus years now and have learned the quality of these parts, how they fit, how to properly install them, and how they last. Some parts are better than others but we always strive to get the best available. We stock all available reproduction parts, rebuilt parts and after market parts for your Thunderbird.