From wagon wheels to hydrogen, Auto Tire & Parts celebrates 100th anniversary

Jan. 1, 2020

3 min read

Back in 1909, Barret Cotner was the proud owner of a new-fangled Ford Model T, and he had a terrible time getting the necessary parts to maintain the contraption. So to alleviate this difficulty he established Auto Tire & Parts in Cape Girardeau, Mo. There were 12 horseless carriages in the county, and Cotner’s humble machine shop and sales counter was the only parts outlet between St. Louis and Memphis.

“He sold Model T parts, buggy whips and wagon wheels,” recounts current co-owner Greg Stroup.

Fast-forward to 2009, and the business is set to celebrate its gala centennial on May 12. The enterprise now covers southeastern Missouri, western Kentucky and southern Illinois. It consists of a warehouse and 40 NAPA-flagged parts stores along with a 17-person machine shop, a Dupont Champions paint distributorship plus a heavy duty division and a tools and equipment operation, which includes a full line of Hunter and Coats tire servicing products.

Auto Tire and Parts in 1929

“We sell a lot of TPMS equipment and related parts, and hydrogen is picking up,” says Stroup. “A lot of garages are broadening their services into tires; in rural markets that’s what you do,” he notes, pointing to the economic pressures confronting the Big Three automakers and their diminishing dealership service departments. “In a lot of rural markets the car dealers are going to go away. When they shut down it’s going to create a void, which creates opportunities” for independent repairers.

The driving force behind Auto Tire & Parts has long been Pat Tlapek, who bought the company from Cotner in 1948. Now retired, Tlapek “provided the template to make the business grow. He brought in key managers and put the business practices in place that became the foundation of our ongoing success,” says Stroup, who is among a partnership organized by Pat’s son John, who purchased the operation from his dad in 1989.

Citing the “experience and knowledge of our staff,” Stroup explains how “the key to our success has been the personal relationships between our long-term employees and our long-term customers. We’re well-known for our old-fashioned values. We have well over 30 employees with 20-plus years with us and many multi-generational customers.”

By 1949 the enterprise was on the move following its 1948 purchase by Pat Tlapek. A hundred years after its founding, the Tlapek family has expanded the company into a 40-store chain.

The product mix is 70 percent wholesale and 30 percent retail. “We stopped selling tires in the 1920s, but our name and reputation for excellent service and integrity was so strong we kept the name” as the company embarked upon its ambitious expansion efforts, says Stroup.

“Today, we are known as the ‘parts professionals since 1909’ not only for our history, but also because we have been our region’s first choice for auto parts for 100 years due to the experience and knowledge of our staff,” he notes.