Nickey Chevrolet

Nickey Chevrolet was based in Chicago, USA, and perhaps the biggest factory performance sales and service Dealership, Speedshop and Super Car Converter anywhere, during their reign.

Nickey Chevrolet was established in the 1920s at the corner of Kedvale and Irving Park Rd. When the Kennedy expressway was built Nickey Chevrolet moved to its final home, in the mid 50's. It was sold in 1973, when it became Keystone Chevrolet. Nickey Chevrolet's final location was at 4501 Irving Park Road, in Chicago.

Nickey Chevrolet grew to a huge 200,000-square-foot (19,000 m²) facility in the 1960s which boasted the largest inventory of "Genuine Chevrolet High Performance Parts." Nickey Chevrolet began its high performance parts business in 1957 and immediately went racing with tremendous success.

Their "Purple People Eater" Corvettes became famous and soon everyone knew that Nickey was spelled with a backwards "K". Nickey created the Super Car Genre. They specialized in engine swaps, and dropped 427s into the very first 1967 Camaros and soon turned to Nova's and Chevelles, as well as other cars with 427s or the Z/28's 302 V8. The 454 was added in 1970 and any other part was available through Nickey's extensive parts department.

Nickey Chevrolet became General Motors largest volume selling Dealership for both parts and vehicles, and many were of the Hi-Performance variety.

The key players who built Nickey's performance cars and image moved to a new location in 1973 on Milwaukee Avenue in Chicago. The New Speed Shop and Automobile converter was called "Nickey Chicago".

Nickey Chicago continued to build legendary Hi-Performance Chevys until 1977 when the speed/performance shop finally closed its doors.

Recently "Nickey Chicago Inc." has been revitalized by Stefano Bimbi and key individuals from the original Nickey Chicago era. The new location is St. Charles, Illinois. More info can be found at the Nickey Chicago website. The company announced plans to build Stage I, II and III 2010 model Camaro Super Cars on the Generation V Camaro platform.