Women's Salvage Business Is On A Roll -- Wheeling And Dealing In Hubcaps -- Family Background A Big Influence On The Owners Of Wheel Cover Willie

At the bottom of a gravel driveway off Highway 99 in north Lynnwood sits a house with an attached garage decorated with lace curtains and fresh-cut roses and carnations. A pint-sized blonde girl stares out the door with her hands pressed against the glass.

Is this a gift shop? A day-care center? A craft store featuring sew-it-yourself pillows and comforters?

Hardly. The women who run this store sell hubcaps. Salvaged hubcaps and alloy wheels.

Brigette Jones, 31, and Jamie Garth, 33, opened Wheel Cover Willie 3 1/2 months ago with a loan from their mother and plenty of family experience behind them.

Their aunt, Nancy Utley, whose police officer husband picked up hubcaps from the highways and brought them home, started the family business, Hubcap Annie, 14 years ago in Memphis, Tenn. She first polished and sold the hubcaps at a garage sale, and saw that many people wanted them.

Soon after Utley opened her shop, Barbara Sanders, Jones' and Garth's mother, opened another Hubcap Annie in Austin, Texas. Then other relatives began popping out of the woodwork.

Jones estimates there are 45 Hubcap Annie franchise stores nationwide. At least half are owned by relatives. Many stores started by their aunts and uncles have been passed to cousins and second cousins. Their mother still runs her store in Texas.

Jones and Garth named their business Wheel Cover Willie, a signal that they are a "second generation" with new ways of doing things (including bringing their toddlers to work). Also, they note, a Hubcap Annie store, owned by a woman who isn't a relative, already existed in Seattle, and they didn't want to "step on her toes."

On average days, the women said, their mother sells $500 worth of hubcaps. They hope to do as well with Wheel Cover Willie. They sell hubcaps for between $5 and $100, depending on the rarity and condition of the hubcap and how many they have in stock. However, Willie has more competition than Annie has in Texas, and success isn't guaranteed.

The women estimate they have sold 600 hubcaps since opening in mid-February. On a good day they sell 30 hubcaps for an average of $20 each. On a bad day, three, the women say.

Willie competes with other companies such as AAA Hubcaps & Wheels, King of Hubcaps and Hubcap Annie in Seattle, and Northwest Used Tire & Wheel Co. in Lynnwood.

Before opening Wheel Cover Willie, Garth opened six other stores for relatives and friends, she said.

Jones and Garth launched Wheel Cover Willie with some of their mother's inventory and the same ideas that govern the Annie franchises. At least originally, many of the stores were owned and run by women. Most tried to make buying hubcaps a pleasant experience, keeping their shops neat and the hubcaps shiny.

Their children, Taylor, 2 1/2, and Loni, 3, entertain the customers. They spend the day in the shop with their mothers, announcing each customer with a cry of "cumsers coming!" Jones, an accountant, and Garth, an electronic assembler, quit their jobs and opened the shop so they could spend time with their girls.

"We're hoping people will be tolerant," Jones said. "So far, the response has been great. They ask us if our kids are for sale."

The women decorate the 9,000-square-foot shop with their hubcap inventory. Shiny hubcaps hang on the white picket fence; hubcaps line the wood columns in front of the garage and decorate the sales counters. Rare hubcaps, from a '56 Chevy, '39 Packard and '39 Chevy, among others, brighten the walls.

The women estimate they have 10,000 hubcaps to sell, stored in the back yard and in the shop itself. No longer scavenging hubcaps from roadsides, they instead clean out old barns and buy from junk yards. Sometimes, people sell them hubcaps they have found.

On a recent June afternoon, customers started coming in one after another. "I've been six months without a hubcap," said customer Jeff Ingmire. "It drives you crazy." A few minutes later, Garth hammers a new (used) hubcap on Ingmire's Dodge. The cost: $5.

He also takes home a pink mug with a black '59 cadillac convertible embossed on it. "You're in luck," Garth tells her customers. "Free mugs with a purchase today. We're trying to spread the word."

The women like to say they cater to "pothole victims" who don't have the time or inclination to search for a replacement hubcap in nearby junk yards and don't want to buy new. They say their prices are 40 percent to 70 percent lower than those for new hubcaps.

"We will wheel and deal with our customers," Jones said. "We want everyone leaving happy." They say they also give a hubcap away every day for good luck.