Levy Auto Parts

[Jason Ginn]

I've found myself looking into Levy Auto Parts of Toronto lately and have found a few interesting references that i'd thought id share here. Surprisingly a look through MLU didn't reveal a good discussion on them so I thought i'd try to get the ball rolling here.

The following pics date from 1954 and primarily show streetcars and buses but a closer look reveals Universal Carriers, HUP's and other CMP's in assorted states of decay. Also of note is the massive stacks of parts crates that i've heard mention of in other discussions.

These pics were in the Toronto Public Library collection.

[Jason Ginn]

It appears that Levy's international dealings hadn't gone unnoticed in intelligence circles and in 1958 the CIA was working with British Intelligence concerning Levy's direct and indirect sales of military vehicles and parts to Israel, the Soviets and China. The report directly refers to the purchase of a large quantity of tank parts in Hawaii and their involvement is the offshore sale of M-10 tank destroyers.

A neat read!

[Jason Ginn]

Here are some aerials from the city of Toronto showing property in 1953, 56 and 1975.It is truly impressive how large the property is!

I have included some detail of the back of the property where the bank washed the M5A1 tanks into the Humber in 1954. you can see the changes and what appears to be at least one Stuart at the bottom of the bank.

[Frank v R]

the '75 photo shows how much stuff was scraped during the Seaway Corp. time , all the M-24's went , Approx. 200 ex US Air Force M-37's , Reo's, and some Sherman's , DUKW's , Diamond T's nd anything else that was at the back of the yard, Levy's also buried a ton of stuff in the yard, the M-37 wheels with tires were still in the ground by the rear gate in the 90's,

[Jason Ginn]

M-24's Eh? Frank do you recall at all if they were from the US or the Canadian ones?

[Frank v R]

I do not recall any of the tanks having stars on them M-24 or M4 , so my bet would be they were Cdn,

[Jason Ginn]

interesting!

Do you recall how many there were?

[Perry Kitson]

In the late '70's/early 80's Levy's were in hot water over the sale of Continental AVDS-1790 engines to South Africa, as well as surplus Canadian Centurions that were reportedly going to India.
The engines were filed on export paperwork stating they were to be used in "coal trucks". Authorities were slow to realize these are the engines used to upgrade the Cents in South African service to Oliphant.
The Cents that were supposedly sent to India, long after they were buying Vickers MBT's and license building them as Vijayanta.

Perry

[Bruce Parker (RIP)]

My recollection of Levy's is that they were of no help to vehicle restorers; they simply wouldn't deal with you for a handful of parts. They had a pattern room with treasure you could look at but not buy.

That all changed when they decided to close shop and sell the land for condominiums. Then it became how fast can we download all this crap. Tons and tons of new in the box parts were stored in disintegrating wood buildings. Each had multiple low, narrow isles, often with the roof falling in, with floor to ceiling bins full of parts on either side. When Levy's opened it up it was a mad panic to look in each bin, try to identify the part and put it in a pile for purchase if it was something you needed. I paid $250 for a mound of parts that I'm still working on.

The worst part was that just behind us MV scroungers were the scrappies. Whereas we were looking in the bins for parts, they were checking whether it was steel, brass or aluminum and throwing it into the corresponding roll off bin for melting down.

[maple_leaf_eh]

Originally Posted by Perry Kitson

In the late '70's/early 80's Levy's were in hot water over the sale of Continental AVDS-1790 engines to South Africa, as well as surplus Canadian Centurions that were reportedly going to India.
The engines were filed on export paperwork stating they were to be used in "coal trucks". Authorities were slow to realize these are the engines used to upgrade the Cents in South African service to Oliphant.
The Cents that were supposedly sent to India, long after they were buying Vickers MBT's and license building them as Vijayanta.

Perry

The rumours for their disposal also included being shipped to Israel in ship's hold covered in grain.

[David Dunlop]

Does anyone know if Levy’s dealt significantly with surplus military wireless/signals equipment, or were they more focused on the vehicles and larger military equipment?


David

[Bob Phillips]

Hi David, I think its safe to say that Levy Auto parts were first and foremost surplus dealers who would buy, sell and trade anything that turned a profit. They had connections with a couple of major surplus yards in the US and a yard in the UK. While at one time they had tons of #19 and related radio parts, their bread and butter business was vehicles, both military and commercial. I remember one of the old timers there telling they always made a handsome profit when one of their insured buildings burned down, which several did over the years. I dont recall any quantity of exotic radio gear around the place, but there was every kind of surplus material you could think of. I remember two long rows of CMP variant axles piled 10 feet high. Boxes and boxes of transfer cases for CMP, DiaT, Fox armoured cars, Dodges, jeeps etc. At one corner of the yard was a pallet stacked high with 105mm breechrings. I toyed with the idea of hauling them all home (for 3x scrap price) to build a patio or some such thing, but it never came to pass. Platform 62 was littered with hundreds of used magnetos for the W670 radial engine. I picked up 25 and later regretted not picking up a whole lot more. It was quite a place. By the way, the axle boxes shown in the photos were the basis for the storage platforms, later roofed over and by the time I saw the place crawling with wildlife.

[BCA]

David: Bob P. is quite right that Levy's was primarily a automotive parts supplier. Rumours of all sorts revolve around Levy's so one has to be careful; many I believe are fanciful hearsay. That said, a former senior Levy manager told me that as a young employee one of his tasks in the early 1950's was to source #19 Sets for re-sale to Pakistan. He travelled as far as BC to buy surplus #19 Sets from surplus dealers. Many sets were acquired in Montreal as DND surplus. Access to Levy's was a rare opportunity but a friend of mine relates that in mid-late 1970's he was in a building that had a large quantity of #19 Sets. He bought a MkII set for $10. In another building was a tri-wall full of new MkIII manuals of which he only was able to get a few. It is likely that these items were lost in a building fire in the late 1970's.
Finally, very little radio gear showed up during my extensive prowling of the storage bays in the mid-to-late 1980's: not much except a few #19 set control boxes and a few power cables.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Searching the forum certainly yields some interesting tidbits about Levy.

Almost 20 years ago some Sherman tracks they distributed turned up in the Netherlands via Greece. A truly international business, it was.

http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/sh...=Levy#post6219

[Andrew Rowe]

Surprisingly, several years ago I was cataloguing several thousand NOS M41 Parts I have, and Levy's name cropped up quite a bit on the packaging, all down here in little old NZ. Pretty sure these parts had been sourced by the US for the NZ Army, back in the 60's, as we ran about 10 of them at the time , Cheers Andrew.

[Bob Phillips]

Hi Andrew, two interesting tidbits relating to M41 spares. I remember that one of the hulks in the yard at Levys was an M8A1 tractor which was a cargo hauler based on the M41 driveline. I was told that a large number were purchased as surplus from the US got and stripped for parts ultimately to supply M41 spares. Coincidentally I was inthe Napco yard back in the day and they also had a similar junker.
One of the reasons for the demise of of Levy was that they were caught running used suspension arms through their extensive workshops and supplying them to the US govt as new. A sharp eyed US inspector noticed a stamping mark on the "new" parts that was actually stamped on used parts sold for scrapping. The resulting charges and recall of a major loan shut the company down.
I never did learn what application the bogus parts were for, perhaps they were M41?

[David Dunlop]

I wonder if Levy’s had a ‘Wholesale’ side to their operations? I can recall finding 19-Set Junction and Distribution Boxes, as well as 12-Pin Wire Loomed Connector Cables of various lengths in several local surplus shops in the early 1980’s. All were packed in heavy duty clear plastic pouches with a white ID Label inside from Levy’s, giving an Inspection and Repacked Date between the late 1950’s and early 1970’s.

The clear plastic pouches always seemed at odds with the more typical reuse of original cardboard and stapled boxes one saw with repack labels glued over the original ID labels.

David