History
In 1932 Arthur Taubman opened Advance Stores, with two stores in Roanoke, Virginia and one in Lynchburg, Virginia.
The first major expansion of Advance Auto Parts was in 1998 when the company acquired the remaining operations of Western Auto, an auto parts and general store retailer. Most of the Western Auto operations had been taken over by Sears, Roebuck and Co. in 1987.
In April 2001, Advance Auto Parts acquired Carport Auto Parts, a regional retail chain with 29 stores in Alabama and Mississippi. On November 28, Advance acquired 671 Discount Auto Parts, Inc., a regional auto parts chain in Florida, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and Louisiana. Upon completion of this merger, Advance Auto Parts became a publicly traded company, listed as a common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol AAP. The year ended with 2,484 stores in 38 states.
In July 2002, Advance Auto Parts received bankruptcy court approval to acquire 57 Trak Auto Parts Stores in northern Virginia, Washington, DC, and eastern Maryland.
Advance now operates over 3,800 locations in 40 states including Puerto Rico & the Virgin Islands using the following branded names: Advance Auto Parts, Advance Discount Auto Parts, and Western Auto (Puerto Rico & Virgin Islands).
Also, in 2010 Advance Auto Parts announced a deal with Monster Jam to become the title sponsor. The company sponsors a truck on the circuit called the Advance Auto Parts Grinder.
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“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)