For over 3 decades there has been some form of “Gene's” in operation. Back in the late 70’s Gene McKinney was working at Joe Smith Automotive in northeast Atlanta. He was Joe’s first employee in the Early Ford Parts division. Gene quickly built a reputation for being someone who knew what combination of original and aftermarket parts worked best together on an early Ford hot rod. For the next few years Gene would work on and off at Joe’s, working a while for himself or others and then back to Joe’s. While away from Joe Smith’s, Gene had a tendency to chase after more than old parts. Fortunately the statute of limitations has probably passed on most of what Gene was up to back then and he never strayed to far away from buying, selling and trading parts as well as working on cars.
In the 80’s Gene’s moved around a good bit. During one of his stints with Joe’s in the early 80’s Gene opened “Gene’s Hot Rod Repair” in the shop behind Joe’s. He built and repaired cars during the week and worked the car shows and swap meets for Joe’s on the weekends. The first Gene’s t-shirts with the Bonneville Coupe were sold back then with the earliest labeled “Gene’s Hot Rod Repair-Affiliated with Joe Smith Automotive”. Another time Gene went back to the shop adding parts to the repair work and opened “Gene’s Hot Rod Parts and Service”. He turned out some great cars during this time and burned up the roads going to swap meets all over the country. Gene was becoming known nationally for keeping an inventory of original and performance parts as well as rare and hard to find pieces. More and more regular customers came to the annual meets to see what Gene was bringing. He was also a regular at the Salt Flats and in 1986 received the Bonneville Cruise-In Long Distance Award for driving out in the “Nuthin Fancy” 1934 3-window. Rod Action did a couple of articles on the trip and the coupe.
