Vick Autosports (VAS) was founded in the very early eights in Georgia (the state not the country) by our founder Rober Vick. His name is where he picked our business name hence why our name is Vick and not Vik, Vic, Vicks, Vick’s, etc – we’re just Vick. Robert was born and raised in Georgia and worked at a Fiat dealership in the 70s. He was even a contact for parts for a certain other (now gone) vendor that was based in Georgia. Eventually after starting our first version (named a little differently) in Georgia he moved to Texas and gave us the current name of Vick Autosports. And the rest they say is history…
Around 2007 Robert decided to retire and devote all his time to racing his X1/9 in the SCCA. He sold the company to a group of three calling themselves GTK. On January 1 of 2009 Jerry Phillips stepped in and purchased VAS from GTK and brought in his son Matt as a salesperson with him.
2009 was a massive rebuilding year for VAS. We got a new manager in Bob Newhouse who believed in VAS like no one had in years. Bob was a driving force in realizing that VAS needed to modernize.
Within a year, the staff built a new website from the ground up. To the entire staff’s amusement, we discovered that our Alfa Romeo section of the VERY old website was not done at all, as in all the parts were divided in only 2 categories. For example, if you wanted to find Alfa Romeo pistons, then you would look in the Bearings category NOT in the Engine parts category. The pre-2010 website was an amazing mess!
Jerry was actively working on producing a new catalog in 2010 as one had not been done in about 5 years. He noticed a trend in our performance section, a section we as a company stood on, in that everything was based on “does this fit SCCA rules?” Jerry made the wise and expensive decision to do away with that mentality to our performance parts. The vast majority of Fiat and Alfa Romeo owners drive their cars on the road and NOT on an SCCA track under SCCA rules. By our estimate the customer base inside the SCCA was only ever less than 0.1% of VAS’ total business.
We as a company immediately following the new website and catalog began the task of making everyday performance parts. This helped with the addition of Andy Phillips to the staff as a Ferrari shop trained mechanic. We dove into parts we thought could best be modernized or brought into an on the road performance parts system rather than track only. Andy was integral in making our now famous 2.25” stainless exhaust system, as it was he that welded up the first kit for mass production.
Soon we added another member to the team, Aaron. His skills took things to different level as this young man is the person that built our Programmable Fuel Injection ECUs. Between Aaron and Andy we were able to build an ALMOST plug-in play PFI system. This really changed the game in the Fiat world. We were able to use this kit to prove that you can run ITB PFI on a classic 124 or a powerful Turbo on an X1/9 and still be able to drive these cars on the street.
On Bob’s birthday back in 2012 he left us (a running joke at VAS) to go back to work for Peterbilt trucks. He helped us get over many massive hurdles and was a positive, happy, and amazing manager and friend. Sadly, we found out a few years ago he passed away in his sleep. We miss his random visits, his smile and constant positivity.
After Bob’s departure management was moved to Matt (the guy writing this). Not to toot my own horn I’ll just say I’m still the manager and if you want me to toot my horn call me!
At this point we’re reaching a point of our modern history. We really doubled down in ordering lots of performance parts. More so we simply started ordering heavier. This led to an immediate issue with where we were located. Our facility in Fort Worth was two buildings with each building split in two with each unit (4 units) having a small office and the remainder storage. Our total area for storage was under 6000 square feet. After a few years of buying in bulk to lower prices we soon had everything full along with a 40 foot container and three 20 foot containers. Something had to give.
October of 2017 that something finally happened. We found a MUCH larger building in Cleburne, TX and decided it was time to upgrade. Gone are the days of remembering which container holds X,Y or Z item, now it’s all under one roof. This was NOT a fast move nor was it an easy move. The building we found was ROUGH! That is honestly an understatement as we removed so much trash in renovating that we filled three 20 foot trash containers. Not to say this was not a fun move as we did get to do some things that we had long wanted to do. First was to move our packing inside our air-conditioned area rather than the broiler of a warehouse. We even included many parts inside this area to lengthen their shelf life like gaskets. If you visit our current facility, you’ll see our packing stations front and center because truthfully, we are a 99.9% shipped business, but you’re all still invited to come over and hang out. Sorry about the loud tape noise.
After moving in and getting this new building all settled and finding our feet in our new warehouse, we decided what can we do next. After searching and thinking and realizing that sometimes you hit a brick wall then you think maybe it’s time to stop running that road.
That is when we found a new friend in ELDEST Builds on YouTube. He was working on a Fiat Spider, and we reached out to see if we could help in keeping those videos rolling. We are asked all the time “is there a video on that” and we simply don’t have the time to make a video ourselves on each little thing. Here was our chance to work with a great person at ELDEST Builds and point people to videos of the thing they are looking at doing. Shortly after finding him, we came across another one!
GarageTime TV was just finishing a Fiat 850 build and was looking at doing his next build up. We reached out to him, and he picked a 124 as his next build. This led us to now being able to point people to two great people doing things for their car. These two have VERY different styles of video and that is what makes them great because you can learn the same thing easily from the style that fits your taste. As of today (Oct 2023) they are both working on Fiat X1/9s and have videos flying out every week.
We’re still looking for someone doing an Alfa Romeo Spider.
Everyday at VAS brings new and unique challenges. We’re always amazed when we hear a new question that after 14 years we have not heard. As a family we love what we do. As a family we’ve grown from youngsters to Parents, Grandparents, Uncles and Aunts. All this occurred while we’ve been here talking to each of you every day. Our last growth was just this July with the birth of another boy into the family. VAS is a family business and VAS has become a part of our family.
We thank all our friends and customers for your years of patronage. We appreciate everyone picking VAS when we know you have a choice of many vendors. To show our thanks we are throwing annual Open Houses. This happens at the very end of April or beginning of May with free food and prizes attendees. We would love to see you at our next Open House on April 27, 2024.
I’ll leave you with a short list of some of the items that we have made since 2009…
Bespoke in-house built X1/9 Coilovers, Hydrasport Shocks, Programable Fuel Injection Kits, Stainless Steel Headers and Exhaust, New Electronic Distributors, Poly Bushings, Full Aluminum Cam Gears, Prima Brake Kits, Crossflow Aluminum Radiators and so much more.
Thank you for reading,
Mathew Phillips
Manager @ Vick Autosports
Editor’s note: Check out the video below from Vick Autosport’s 40th anniversary open house. Hope y’all can make this year’s open house on April 27th!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuyLG76fIuQ
Nice article Matt. Thanks for the shout out to Eldest Builds and Garage Time TV
Eldest OUT!