I'm sure many of you have noticed there are 2 high performance engine builders in Kingsport, TN with similar names, leading to a great amount of confusion.
We are Skip White Performance, NOT White Performance and Machine.
Due to the name similarity many customers looking for us online inadvertently find them, thinking we are the same company. Definitely not...there is no connection between the two companies. We don't have a problem with free enterprise (competition). However, when the competition builds their foundation on such things as a name similarity and their supposedly long history of being in business, then we think it's about time we set the record straight.
We have owned White Performance since 2003, with the exception of the machine shop, which was owned by Fred White at the time. He continued to operate the machine shop and build engines for us while we continued selling online under the eBay user ID of skipwhite and the eBay store name of whiteperformance1.
Due to their limited production capability and many disagreements about the engine building process and workmanship, we opted to open a full scale machine shop back around 2008. Fred White began competing against us even though our contract had a non-compete clause in it. Around this time we changed our company name to, Skip White Performance to make clear distinction between the two of us.
As our business grew, we opened a second, much larger warehouse and machine shop around 2011, located on Brookside Ln. in Kingsport TN. By putting heart and soul in this company, we have become the number one street rod engine builder in the nation. Our engine program is unlike any of the others out there.
Fred sold his shop, (White Performance & Machine) to an investor in 2016 and the new owners continue to reap the benefits from this confusion between the two shops. This investor lacked any knowledge of this industry. They continue to use the White Performance & Machine name. Contrary to what is posted on their website, Fred White is no longer associated with the company in any way. Their main spiel in advertising is, "In business since 1979," when in fact, we purchased the White Performance company in 2003, with the exception of the machine shop.
All in all, we have been in this business going on 18+ years. Skip White's passion has been owning and building street rods for 47 years on a personal level. The knowledge he has gained over time has allowed him to venture into this business and succeed to a very high level.
The great pretenders continue capitalizing on our success due to the name similarity, but have been degrading our reputation. We have been getting calls nearly on a daily basis from people that now realize there are two shops in this town with very similar names. Many customers complain of serious problems in getting their engines from them. A good portion of these customers have waited for up to 12 months or more on an engine that was promised to them in 6-8 weeks. Many of these people have yet to receive a refund from them. Some think they purchased their engine from us. Due to the confusion, there is an increasing amount of negative feedback that is affecting our name within the street rod community, when in fact we have a near perfect reputation in this industry. We have an "A+" rating with the Better Business Bureau and we have maintained the A+ rating for many years. As of this notice, (10/20/2019) the great pretenders have an "F" rating on bbb with a fraud alert. They have acquired 55 complaints and 52 of them in the past 12 months. Most of these complaints are of a serious nature and involve the loss of great amounts of money that customers have given to them over a considerably long time. Their google reviews will also back up what were saying. Their ebay store has been shut down and their score shows a huge amount of negative scoring. Please help us spread our story to any all of your friends in the hot rod community. As of around 1/18/20 this company was raided by the US Secret Service/Department of Homeland Security. They are now shut down completely from what we can tell. Prior to this happening the owner of WPM was arrested by local authorities for writing bad checks in the amount of $25,000.00 Hopefully we can some day restore our name that has been damaged due to the confusion between the two places.
Just to give you an idea of how much confusion there is out there between us and them, We were recently notified by the Consumer Affairs division of TN of a complaint from a customer that lost a large sum of money with WPM. This department had confused us with them. We set them straight on this quickly. We have also been approached by two different attorneys wanting to sue us for large amounts of money owed to vendors for parts. We had to inform them that they had the wrong company. Were in perfect standing with our vendors as well as our customers. White Performance and Machine also used our exact name, (Skip White Performance) on their credit card merchant account. By doing this our name showed up on a customers credit card statement as if we were the ones selling them a product. This customer called us and told us this, and we were sure he was wrong until he sent a picture of his credit card statement showing our full name on it. There seems to be no limit to the extent WPM will go to impersonate us. There are about four various review boards online, and all of them reveal what were saying to be true.
Help protect others in the hot rod community and share, "Our Story" with them.
FAST FORWARD TO PRESENT DAY...We have become the largest street rod engine builder in the nation. Our engines, rotating assemblies, and cylinder heads are built to very high standards and shipped to our customers in a timely manner. We are a premier seller on eBay with a positive feedback score of well over 206,000 and growing. This is over ten times greater than the great pretenders score in spite of their so called long time in business.
Our engines are custom-built to our customers' specifications and are shipped in approx. 2-5 weeks, perhaps sooner, depending on the season. Our rotating assemblies usually ship out in about one week or less, and our heads ship in about a week or less.
Please check out this website www.skipwhiteperformance.net . Our phone number is 423-722-5152
Customer Satisfaction
We are the premier seller of high-performance engine parts, from starters, fuel pumps, intakes, and valve covers to turnkey crate engines. Please see the over 260,000 positive reviews we have earned from our satisfied customers over the last 16 years of on-line sales.
Our shop in Kingsport, Tennessee
Our shop is filled with knowledgeable craftsmen and the most advanced machinery available on the market. Our 9 full time machinists and engine builders have many years of experience building racing engines and have been in this line of work for their entire careers. Their ages range from 42 to 68. Critical machine work and assembly is done to exacting specifications, with great care and experience. If you're considering another shop, be sure to ask about their staff and equipment.
Many of our customers have asked if they can tour our shop before buying an engine, and we certainly welcome this. Call us at 423-722-5152 or e-mail us at skip@whiteperformance.net and we would be happy to set up your tour. We're located in Kingsport, Tennessee, at 1910 Brookside Ln.
Here are a few videos highlighting our shop tour, rotating assemblies, short block assembly, and cylinder head building process.