Lost locations roundup: Flying A service station, King-Midget factory, custom car dealership

Of all the old car-related locations we like to research, one of each type has entered our Inboxes in recent weeks, starting with the above Flying A Service station, sent in by James Kelly. He informs us it’s:

A promotional photo of Jimmy Uyehara’s Flying A Service in Honolulu from 1959, complete with ‘59 Plymouth Fury, rare ‘59 Country Squire and the snout of a Vauxhall, which was sold across the street at Kapiolani Motors (you can see the back end of the Pontiac-Vauxhall dealership in the background). Alas, all are gone now; Jimmy’s spot at the corner of Kona Street and Piikoi Street is now part of a little strip mall attached to Ala Moana Shopping Center. The dealership was bulldozed years ago and is now the site of a high rise.

Google does have a Street View of that location.

Next up, it appears that our post on King Midget factories back in July wasn’t as complete as we thought. Bob Vahsholtz sent us the above photo of one last King Midget factory in Glouster, Ohio, just up the road from Athens, where, he says, “Vernon Eads built those ‘dune buggy’ prototypes, the trailers and assembled quite a few of the last KMs from available parts inventory.”

As you can see, it’s not much! The piece (a March 8, 1970, article in the Akron Beacon-Journal) declared Eads had bought all the MM manufacturing equipment but was “leaving it” in the Athens plant and setting up “an assembly line in nearby Glouster.” He announced a whole new process of manufacturing based on distributed small shop suppliers. The 6,600 square foot building was described as a “… concrete block building attached to an old warehouse…” owned by the town of Glouster and leased to Eads for a token amount.

At that point, the name of the operation had been changed to Barthman Corporation, the name said to arise from the investment Eads’ father-in-law made in the business.

Now you have the “Complete List” with the possible exception of branch plants in Florida and Canada, which to my knowledge, never actually turned out any cars. There was also an early plant in Mexico, owned by others, which was intended to assemble King Midgets down there. Again, I don’t know that any cars were ever assembled though they apparently bought a lot of kits.

No exact address for the place in Glouster, though.

Last up, while flipping through a November 1959 issue of Motor Trend, we came across this ad for Wall Custom Cars, “The World’s Largest Custom Car Dealer,” similar to Auto Trends, the Corvette and muscle car dealership that Jim MacDonald sent us photos of last month. Gotta wonder how long it was at that advertised location – 3900 E. Firestone Blvd., South Gate, California – especially considering the ginchy mid-century architecture displayed by the South Gate Car Wash, currently at that location.

Hit the jump to view larger versions of the above images.