One roaming customer called it “a man?s toy store.” Another: “a flea market for guys.”
At Crazy Ray?s, the Baltimore area?s first and only “you pull it” auto recycling yard, men (although women are certainly welcome) wandered the endless isles of cars ? all in varying states of disrepair ? banging for spare parts and hauling away doors, fuel pumps and headlights.
Owners JoeDuff and Jim Gosnell built a junkyard empire on the concept of zero customer service and dirt-cheap prices.
In about a dozen years, the business has expanded to four locations, each offering a well-organized menagerie of car, truck and motorcycle parts.
Customers bring their own tools and knowledge of cars and are left free to roam.
“We are able to do it because we save on the labor, and also because of volume,” Duff said.
Indeed, volume is key to making money when most parts cost $10 and $20. A car door, which could cost a driver up to $1,200 from a body shop, costs $40 at Crazy Ray?s. Prices range from a couple of bucks for an antenna to $150 for an engine.
That is, provided customers, which include mainly car enthusiasts and owners of small body shops, know their way around the junkyard.
“It is a working yard,” Duff said. “It?s not for the meek.”
Crazy Ray?s also has to constantly keep turning over the cars, replacing the picked-clean skeletons with fresh autos. They average about 40 cars in and out each day, said co-owner Jim Gosnell.
They buy the cars at auctions and from the public at about $100 each. Once the car is drained of all the fluids, it?s placed in the yard, ready to be devoured.
It all started about a dozen years ago with the purchase of Rays Auto Parts on Erdman Avenue. Duff thought to bring the self-service concept, which originated in California, to the Baltimore area, so he joined fellow auto parts dealer Gosnell to convert Ray?s. The name took on the “Crazy” after an incredulous ad exec thought it was a crazy concept.
Crazy or not, they continue to grow. The most recent location ? and largest at 17 acres ? opened on Hawkins Point Road in Baltimore about two years ago, and they employ 90 people.
The company also brings in money from the scrap steel, which is recycled once the car is picked clean for parts.
But the focus is on the 200 to 300 people each weekday, and twice that number on the weekends, that come to rummage for parts.
Mechanic Charles Ross made the trip from Washington, D.C., to find a few rare parts.
“You pretty much can find some diamonds in the rough,” he said. “But if you find something, get it then or it?ll be gone.”
STORE LOCATIONS
Crazy Ray?s has four locations around Baltimore:
» 6201 Erdman Ave., Baltimore; 410-488-6650
» 8125 Washington Blvd., Jessup; 410-799-6630
» 2801 Hawkins Point Road, Baltimore; 410-354-4800
» 3923 Twin Arch Road, Mount Airy; 410-795-9830
