Here at Cleveland Power and Performance we are proud to announce our 30th birthday this week. We would like to thanks of our our loyal customers over the years. Check out the story below for a little company history!

Here at Cleveland Power and Performance we are proud to announce our 30th birthday this week. A lot of people might not be happy about turning the big three oh, but we couldn’t be more proud. Thirty years ago our founding father Rick Fragnoli was a union electrician with 5 small children. He ran for president of the union, and lost by eleven votes. He thought there was some inside votes placed at the last minute, and to make a long story short did not like the politics involved.

So he immediately resigned, left work, bought a junk yard and went home for the day. Remember this was before the cell phone age when everyone was ruled by a pocket device controlled by one’s own thumbs. So when he got home from work, his loving wife asked if he was union president. The answer was no, I am no longer employed with them, and we now own a junk yard! Clearly there was some words that cannot be typed on here exchanged, and then for better or worse the journey began.

The yard was your typical bone yard of the 1980s. It was rather unclean, not organized, and pretty much the perfect backdrop for a slasher flick setting. The yard had a fence around its thirty acres literally made out of junk tires. Cleveland was only roughly 15 years from its river burning, and was mired in just being a plain and trashy spot to live. So the tires slowly started to get recycled, the yard slowly began to rid itself of all the garbage. The cars that were everyday cars and outdated started to get dragged from the trees, the land began to get cleared and the canvas was set for an extraordinary journey.

The company began to expand and grow in the 1990s. We started putting warehouses up with inside lifts. The old storage buses were discarded for modern warehouses, and inside dismantling lifts were installed for the safety and warmth of our employees. We developed into one of the area’s premier salvage yards as a result of our hard work, dedication to our craft, and dedication to our employee’s needs.

In the early 2000s, one of Rick’s sons had rebuilt a 2000 Trans Am WS6 convertible. Rick and his wife Becky traveled out of country for a vacation, and the rule was “do not take the Trans Am to college until the final balance was paid off to father.” Of course once they were out of country, the car immediately went to college. When he was bringing it back to put in the garage so no one would know, the car was side swiped by another driver. Luckily he had another week until they were home, so with the help of some employees, the car was quickly dismantled and the parts were placed for sale on the internet. Within a week the car stripped down to a bone, the parts were sold off, and the debt would be re-paid when his dad arrived home.

This strange occurrence of events transcended the company into a different direction, the internet direction. At the time, nearly zero salvage yards were selling their parts online. And at this same time, a beautiful renaissance of the second coming of a muscle car generation rebirth was under way.

We started to part some really nice cars that thirty years from now will be worth way more than we sold the parts for! The cars were un-salvageable, and the resto mod craze was under way. As we started to part so many of the young muscle cars that would soon be classics, we realized that we had a ton of extra parts.

We started to rebuild the cars coming in that could be saved. We wanted to offer great rebuilt vehicles to the public at a huge savings for the buyer. We also wanted to start to use all of the drivelines we were selling and start building our own resto mods.

We want to take this opportunity to thank all of our past, present, and future customers for all of their business and support. We look forward to the next thirty years and all of the exciting changes it holds in store for us.

As the company goes forward, we are still a family owned operation. Rick is still heavily involved with the company, and has now passed the torch over to his two sons, Brian and Rick. As the second generation goes into full swing, we are starting to involve all of Ricks grandchildren to make sure the third generation is ready to keep the strong tradition alive.

Once again, from Cleveland Power and Performance we wanted to say thank you for the last 30 years!!

-Rick Fragnoli