Auto parts store owner salvaging the salvage yard

Jan. 10, 2007
By JOSEPH M. DELEON News-Post Staff
jdeleon@fredericknewspost.com

  FREDERICK — Having the run of a salvage yard is like paradise to many young boys. Their imaginations transform lines of abandoned cars, stacks of dusty tires and rows of dented hub caps into battle fields, complete with hulking tanks and hills to conquer.
     That's what it was like growing up for Ralph Snyder, manager of Best Used Auto Parts retail store on East Fourth Street. A six-acre salvage yard a block away feeds hundreds of meticulously tested parts to the store.
     As a child, Mr. Snyder would join his dad almost every Saturday at a salvage yard where the two would pull parts off junkers to take back home. During breaks, his dad would let him drive some of the trashed cars around the junkyard.
     “My dad always liked fiddling around with cars and I could do anything I wanted there,” Mr. Snyder recalled at the store Tuesday. “That was built into me, to take nothing and make it into something.”
     Those childhood adventures led to a career of recycling used auto parts. Now he is working to change the image associated with salvage yards with a super- market-style showroom — customers can wander the yard if they choose, but for the less adventurous consumer, just about everything is available right in the store.
     “It could be a dangerous area to walk into a running salvage yard,” Mr. Snyder said. “This gives (customers) that option to feel as safe as they would in a Safeway or Giant.”
     The building was constructed in 1840 to transfer cargo on and off freight cars on the former rail line, which runs the length of East Street. The store opened in early November after Mr. Snyder spent about three months renovating the main room.
     Freshly scrubbed engine blocks on dollies line a woodpanel wall opposite stacks of clean, used tires. The buff-colored walls with dark-stained trim, African rosewood countertops and plush leather waiting area give the showroom a comfortable, homey feel.
     Shelves full of replica antique toy cars, Lionel trains and L.G.B. train ads cover about a 10-foot section of a faux-brick panel wall, connecting the interior design to the building's train history.
     “Opening this retail space makes it a little less intimidating for your moms, your sisters or your timid brother-in-laws to come in,” Mr. Snyder said. “It's a nice clean place to come by and sit in my lodge and see what a salvage yard has to offer.”
     While customers often compliment the showroom, many passersby have stopped in just to see the store. A few stayed to share stories about what the neighborhood used to look like.
     “It's amazing how the people of Frederick will come by just to see what's going on,” Mr. Snyder said. “One women even offered to make copies of old photographs she has from way back; they'd look good on the walls.”
     He recalled a young boy who rode his bike to the shop last week. As the boy wandered around the showroom, he stared at the mechanical organs, chrome rims and miniature trains, idly thumping stacks of tires along the way, Mr. Snyder said.
     Later in the afternoon, the boy returned with two friends. The wide-eyed trio reminded Mr. Snyder of himself as a boy.
     “I see a little bit of myself in everyone that comes in here,” he said. “And I put a lot of myself into this place.”