PHILADELPHIA, Jan 31. - Soave Enterprises LLC, a Detroit-based diversified holding company and parent of Ferrous Processing & Trading Co., has teamed up with long-time auto parts professional Bill Wild to form Parts Galore, a self-service used auto parts retail outlet.

Wild is a familiar figure in the used parts auto business in the Detroit area. He has been active in that business for more than 40 years, operating an auto wrecking yard called Highway Auto Equipment in the Motor City. Wild plans to leave that business to head up the Parts Galore venture with Soave. He previously operated another used auto business called Scrapbusters Inc. but sold that interest to his son several years ago.

With an initial investment of $5 million, Parts Galore will open its first store in Detroit this spring on an 18-acre site on Eight Mile Road. Soave Enterprises plans to open additional parts Galore outlets in Michigan, initially in the metropolitan Detroit area, followed by outlets in the Cleveland and Toledo, Ohio markets.

Parts Galore customers will be able to remove and purchase parts from any of the 18 acres of used automobiles in the massive inventory of 2,500 cars and trucks at its first planned parts outlet in Detroit. With a monthly turnover of more than 1,000 vehicles, consumers seeking auto parts will always have a huge selection of quality used parts from which to choose, the company said in a statement announcing the new venture.

In the start up facility, junked cars will be set up on stands and drained of fluids. Auto mechanics and do-it-yourself car repairers will be charged a fee to enter the yard and remove the parts they want, then pay the cashier for those parts. It is likely that many of the wrecks, once they are picked clean of the usable parts, will be sold to the Ferrous Processing & Trading Co. yards to be shredded.

Wild said in a telephone interview that his Highway Auto Equipment yard has been a major supplier to Ferrous Processing's shredders in the Detroit area for years.
Ferrous Processing has four auto shredders in the Detroit area, another in Cleveland and one in Miami, Fla. It has no shredder in Toledo, but it does operate a scrap yard in the northwestern Ohio city.

In addition to its ownership of Ferrous Processing, Soave Enterprises has interest in real estate, automotive retailing, industrial services, beverage distribution, logistics, and the transportation industries.

Soave's venture into the used auto parts business closely follows the expansion of Portland, Ore - based Schnitzer Steel Industries, Inc. in that segment of its operations. Earlier this month, Schnitzer announced it was expanding its Pick-N-Pull used auto parts operation from the West Coast and western Canada into the Midwest and the East Coast (AMM, Jan 5). Schnitzer said it would buy four self-service used auto parts stores in St. Louis and Kansas City, Mo., Columbus, Ohio, and Virginia Beach, Va., from Vehicle Recycling Solutions LLC (VRS).

The Midwest acquisitions, which came less than a year after it brought three Canadian auto parts yards, are an important segment of its growth plans, Schnitzer executives said.