Blauparts History

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Blauparts in historyBlauparts in history

Who started Blauparts?

Jim Blau Jr. started Blauparts LLC (known initially as Blaufergnugen Inc.) with 1500 dollars and a prayer to be able to provide for his family. He started working on European cars at the young age of 14, restoring a 1962 Volvo 122s with his dad. Jim's dad (Jim Blau Sr.) owned a car dealership in the 1960s called Tosa Imports in Milwaukee, WI. It was the first Volvo, Saab, Alfa Romeo, Triumph, Subaru, and Suzuki dealership in the state of Wisconsin. Jim started working as a technician on imports in his youth and eventually opened his own business. 

How long have you been in business?

Over 30 years.

Blauparts was started in the early 1990s specializing in Audis and Volkswagens. Today, we're still a family-owned business with a strong German heritage. We began as a local brick & mortar business located in Wisconsin, where we sold and serviced Audi, Volkswagen, and other European cars out of a small repair shop. While taking the time to listen to the needs of our customers, we began to send out newsletters with helpful Audi VW do-it-yourself (DIY) maintenance information. Then came the internet. Our first email address was [email protected], and in 1997, we acquired our first URL, audiquattroparts.com. We were one of the first to distribute not only Audi VW parts, but auto parts in general on the world wide web in North America! We started to share our enthusiasm for Audi and VW with others around the world. Some may remember our involvement at the Quattro Club Events at Road America in Elkhart Lake or our Project 4000 Quattro, appropriately called HotQuat.

What about Blauparts today?

While we still sell car parts for our first love of Audis and Volkswagens, our company has evolved into a diversified, professional, and respected business organization following “golden rule” values. We have decades of technical and engineering “know how” that have been acquired from our enthusiastic hands-on involvement in all aspects of the automotive, truck, marine, power sports, and industrial industries. We employ FMEA engineering methods when developing our BLAU® brand of products. Using modern software technologies, we follow ISO 9001/TS16949 quality and management disciplines within our company. Blauparts has many “first the world over” accomplishments in the automotive aftermarket industry record book. It’s been responsible for driving epic changes in the above-mentioned industries having to react. World famous original equipment manufacturers consult with us and seek our teams advise on how to improve from a technical standpoint and market their products from an e-commerce perspective. Even though we are a small company in comparison to many of our competitors, our intellectual and knowledge base assets, along with our strong German heritage, in many ways, make our company a worldwide leader in all industries we have and continue to engage in.

Where are you located?

We are located along beautiful Lake Michigan in the small town of Manitowoc, Wisconsin U.S.A. with a population of about 30,000 people.

Blauparts in 1995 newspaperBlauparts in 1995 newspaper
Blauparts in a 1995 newspaper