Delta Motorsports in old-time Phoenix


I don't have any photos of the original location of Delta Motorsports, which was at 10th Street and Indian School Road, just a few of their "new" location at 28th Street and Bell, which is also long-gone. Last I heard it was a going concern in Sunnyslope, but had long passed into the hands of people that I don't know.

Time-travel with me, and let's go visit Delta. The pic at the top of this post is from 1989, when I had just moved back to Phoenix from California, and it looks like they gave me a shirt. I wonder if I still have that? Probably not. That's at their 28th Street and Bell location, but where they were really never mattered, they were a mail-order company. If someone walked in, like I used to do, they would just sit around and talk until the phone rang. The sales were mostly done over the telephone. They sold car parts, specifically for a car called a "Jensen-Healey", which hadn't been manufactured since 1976. And that's what got them all started.

The timing was perfect for me, as I had arrived in Phoenix in 1977, and found an apartment at 9th Street just north of Indian School Road, and I had a British car that was always in need of repairs.

When I hobbled over there, in desperate need of car repairs, all I saw was the Union Jack, which all British shops displayed. And since they had just opened, they were willing to do repairs on my non-Jensen-Healey!

Their original plan for their business was to do Jensen-Healey repairs, but they quickly found that there was a greater need - customers needed parts, and the dealerships were all closed. So they threw together a little flyer, and started creating a list of people who had contacted them for parts. Then a terrible day came for me, when I was told that I needed a new clutch, and that with parts and labor it would be more than I paid for the car!

I had been studying graphic design, and they asked me if I could design a catalog. Of course I could! I did the design for their first catalog, which was such a success that they had to work had to keep up with the orders. In return, they installed a new clutch on my MG. Over the years, the catalog expanded, and they became known as THE source for Jensen-Healey parts. As for me, my reputation began with that catalog, and I went on to do a lot of that sort of thing over the years.

Thank you for visiting Delta Motorsports with me!


Thank you for the encouragement! If you want to see daily pics of my adventures on my recumbent trike in suburban Phoenix (just for fun, of course!) you can follow me on Buy me a coffee, and you can buy me a coffee if you'd like to:

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