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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Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The History of the world is not the theatre of happiness. Periods of happiness are blank pages in it, for they are periods of harmony—periods when the antithesis is in abeyance.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“In history an additional result is commonly produced by human actions beyond that which they aim at and obtain—that which they immediately recognize and desire. They gratify their own interest; but something further is thereby accomplished, latent in the actions in question, though not present to their consciousness, and not included in their design.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.”
—Henry Ford (1863–1947)