HISTORY OF MAUPIN’S TRUCK PARTS, INC.

            Cecil Maupin, Sr. and his wife Helen founded Maupin’s Truck Parts, Inc., in 1935.  They started out as a junk iron yard, buying autos and trucks for scrap metal. Cecil realized an increasing demand for used auto and truck parts so he started purchasing old trucks and automobiles and sell parts off of them as well. What parts he couldn’t sell to his customers were sold as scrap iron.

During World War II, the used and rebuilt parts business was extremely good.  After the war, Cecil was able to purchase surplus trucks and trailers from the Government.  This is how they got started in the heavy, truck parts business.

In 1962, Cecil and his company outgrew their 2 acre facility on Second Avenue and they moved to their present location on the corner of highway 283 and the south 56 bypass.  Cecil Sr. and his family proceeded to grow his used truck parts business by traveling across the country buying and selling used trucks. 

Cecil Maupin, Jr., purchased the business from his family in 1977.  Within a few short years, Junior took the business to the next level, with the help of many key employee’s who are still with the company today.  Junior was determined to supply his customers with the largest and most up to date inventory of new and used truck parts in the region.

Jr. realized, being known as a used part/salvage yard for all those years was making it difficult to project the increased quality of the used trucks and parts at his current location.  The image of being a salvage/junk yard made customers averse to buying the used parts.  Jr. knew he had to change the image his store projected by separating the used truck sales division from the used parts business. 

The family purchased 3 acres within ¼ miles north of the main facility.  And a 7200 square foot building was constructed.  Within five years the used truck sales operation had proven to be a success.  In 1988 the family decided it was time to look for a partner.  Business had increased to a point that we needed someone to manage and take an ownership role.  We asked Ken W. Snook to join our team.  Maupin’s Truck Sales, was born.

Cecil Maupin Junior’s, two children have been actively working beside him in the business.  Diane started working for the business in 1973 and Jay in 1983.  With Junior’s guidance, influence and motivation his two children were able to purchase the business from him in 1997.  Both Jay and Diane actively oversee the daily operations of the business,

Maupin’s Truck Parts, Inc. at its current location is sprawled on a 35-acre site.  Our main building has over 25,000 square feet of floor space that provides our customers with the largest inventory of new and used truck parts in the state of Kansas.  With an additional 25,000 square feet of service area and 12 service bays our mechanics are qualified to take care of any truck needs.

Our tire department has one of the largest inventories of used and new tires in the area.  Our goal is to meet our customer’s needs while remaining competitive in the market.  We have specialty wheels and tires for farm and feed lot application along with a large selection of new and used truck and tractor tires. Two years ago we completed a 13,000 square foot machine shop and alignment building.

           In 2000 we became a new truck dealer for the Western Star Truck brand.   Jay and I knew we needed to align our business with an OEM to secure the future of our business.  That same year, Western Star was purchased by Freightliner, LLC and we were offered the Sterling Trucks franchise for Southwestern Kansas. 

The Sterling truck brand has proven to be very successful for us!  Then a bombshell fell when Daimler Trucks of North America announced that they had made the decision to discontinue the production of Sterling Trucks as of October of 2008.

 remedy this dilemma we decided to approach Omaha Truck Center who owns the Freightliner AOR for our area about the possibility of becoming a parts and service

 location for them.  Some time after our first meeting OTC offered to sell the Freightliner AOR to us. And the rest is history.