Centerline Products is excited to announce that we have acquired International Auto Parts (IAP) of Charlottesville, VA.
To commemorate this change, and to honor IAP’s long history, Centerline Products will become Centerline International. All operations will remain based out of Centerline’s longtime Colorado location.
For nearly 40 years, Centerline and IAP have engaged in friendly competition. With this acquisition, Centerline International will continue our quest to passionately serve our customers by providing products and service worthy of the Alfa Romeo marque. Whether you drive a classic Giulietta, GTV or Spider, or have a brand new 4C you can look forward to increased staffing, new and innovative products, and the largest inventory of Alfa Romeo parts and accessories in North America.
At this time, I would like to encourage all Alfisti to thank IAP founder Paul Opiela for his many years of dedication and hard work, and to wish him well in his future adventures. There are also many other members of the IAP staff who have provided excellent service to our community over the years. They have all asked me to express their gratitude to the many long-term customers and friends they have met along the way.
The IAP folks were a great help when I owned my '88 Milano Verde; always taking the time to answer questions and offering advice, as well as, great parts. I wonder if any IAP personnel be remaining aboard?
Good on 'ya, Joe! Both IAP and Centerline have played major roles in making old Alfa Romeos attractive choices in the vintage marketplace. What has made this work is that both companies were built on deep institutional knowledge of what works and what doesn't. When I called Centerline or IAP looking for parts, I always had confidence that the answer I'd receive wold be based on that knowledge. That's a precious resource and, like Paul, you've always understood how essential that is to making the whole shootn' match work. You're just the guy to bring these two similar but simultaneously different companies under one roof.
Thank you to both IAP and Centerline for all the help over the last 15 years I've been in the world of Alfa's. Great to see this opportunity to grow and help all of us in this wacky hobby we have.
Well done Joe!
Although Centerline is a Colorado company and I already buy most of my new bits from them, I do not welcome the acquisition. Competition is good for the consumer and these were the two main distributors. Can't wait to see what this does to pricing.
I found out about the acquisition just now when I called IAP to return my old starter to recoup my core charge. Colorado says they have not sorted out how that is going to work yet. They took my number and said they'd call me when they have it figured out. Fingers crossed, expecting no problem as both are stand-up companies.
Congrats to all parties.. sorry if any of the employees are lost in the shuffle because they are really driven by customer satisfaction and have done a marvelous job. They are really good people. Now the challenge will be to keep demanding parts that are correct as NOS quality and not accept anything inferior that seem to be scattered to the all the suppliers. A leg up would be to get them right and know what is inferior.. I hope this marriage accomplishes the objective to provide the best replacement products at no sacrifice to the details that often are overlooked as "this is what is available".
Matt plowed new ground by leg work.. if suppliers (reman) are going to branch out for more business, then get it right.. and the guy with the right product on hand wins.. There is no reason to go through the reman steps and get them wrong if the specs are defined and more effort needs to be done in this area. Perhaps a stronger position can help put emphasis on producing parts that are the truest quality of original parts with the effort put forth by the reman people and their ability to copy.. This takes coordination that has been lacking. One distributor starts the process of a ground breaking product and before you know it they all have the same source. ... and it is crap because the first distributor accepted it so everyone is left holding the bag including the customer! "Close but no cigar" doesn't work anymore. I hope you can pull this off. Put a man on it. Good luck
As my business has transitioned from servicing only Alfas to servicing a wider variety of classics, I have done business with a wide variety of vendors for all kinds of cars & from points all over the world. The service we enjoy from these guys is second to none.
Allow me to be the party pooper curmudgeon. Although I have had good experiences with both companies, and I understand the shrinking market both companies have had to deal with, consolidation and a reduction of choices does not bode well for us.
Allow me to be the party pooper curmudgeon. Although I have had good experiences with both companies, and I understand the shrinking market both companies have had to deal with, consolidation and a reduction of choices does not bode well for us.
Well, yes and no. In the past couple of decades interest in vintage Alfas has expanded until it is a worldwide phenomena. I've been involved with Alfas for almost 50 years now and I distinctly remember how troublesome the 70's and early 80's were when the factory slowly stopped supplying parts. There are probably more and better (with some exception) parts available now than ever before. The marketplace is truly worldwide now and Centerline has been a significant player there for a long time. There are, in fact, plenty of choices to be made (and correspondingly significant marketplace competition). Max at Alfaholics, for instance, sent me a new lightwight flywheel on Tuesday that got delivered to Texas on Friday. There was a time when that task would have taken weeks to accomplish . . . if I could have found such a flywheel in the first place.
I gave up on the USA based suppliers a couple of years ago.
Too expensive, crap service and outrageous shipping costs.....
The competition is there from the UK suppliers that have all the parts at reasonable prices and super fast shipping..... I will be interested to see if anything changes in the USA....
Maybe you could help us Yanks out with a listing of such suppliers. I only know of one I have found so far.....
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