Butch’s Cool Stuff

You can contact Butch’s Cool Stuff at (937) 667-5544 or go online to www.butchscoolstuff.com. A catalog is also available.

Butch Bunn spent most of his life building hot rods, one piece at a time. After all of those years of fabricating motor mounts, transmission kits, front and rear axle mounts and other pieces, he started selling them. Then his bad back got the better of him.

After selling his shop and recovering from the back issues, the hot rod bug got him again, and Terry and Sandy Keplinger were in the right place at the right time.

“He came to us at Staub Manufacturing Solutions and wanted to start making some of the parts again, and my husband Terry and I got involved,” Sandy said, while standing behind the counter of the shop in downtown Tipp City. “One thing led to another and now we’re with Butch as Butch’s Cool Stuff. It’s a perfect fit for Terry. He knows manufacturing, materials, purchasing and marketing.”

Terry runs the shop, which stocks the parts, all of which are made at Staub.

“We specialize in ’30s, ’40s and ’50s cars, engine and transmission conversion kits, and all types of suspension and lowering kits. Butch was always putting a Chevy engine in a Ford, or something along those lines, so he did all the measuring and fabricating of the motor mounts. We’re using all of his knowledge to make these parts out of the best materials and the hot rodders can install them with confidence that they’ll work,” Keplinger said.

“Back in the day, most hot rodders were in the garage tinkering and making the parts themselves, but we’ve adapted Butch’s company to today’s hot rodder. It’s also cool, because while Butch isn’t here every day, he’s just a phone call away. So when I have a customer with a tough question, I call Butch and we get the right answer,” he added.

While there is a showroom located in the back of Benkin Antique Gallery on Main Street in Tipp City, Terry is the first to admit hardly anyone ever comes in.

“No, it’s either a phone call or online. We also attend a dozen or so shows each year, the Good Guys and events like that. We sell parts all over the United States and actually we sell a bit overseas, too. I’m getting ready to ship to Austria, and we’ve shipped parts to Australia, Sweden, Germany, Belgium and France. You know, the world is pretty small with the Internet.”

Butch’s Cool Stuff was honored last year by the HotRod and Restoration Trade Show with the Innovation Award for 2011 with their new headlight rings for frenching on the ’50s Mercs and Fords.

“It was quite an honor, and this year, we developed a new vertical tube grille, made out of highly polished stainless steel,” Keplinger said. “That’s in addition to our horizontal grilles for most ’50s Fords and Chevys. We have over 185 different items for all types of cars, mostly Chevrolet, Ford, Chrysler, Dodge and Plymouth. We’re old-school cool.”