Each car’s a page in Jerry’s Rice’s life, hundreds of them over a lifetime. Each one’s a story, and he’s excited to share the tale with Gladewater through East Texas Speed.
By day, it’s hard to miss at 222 S. Main St. with its recently refreshed art deco façade, towering picture windows and gleaming rows of pristine automobiles. By night, it’s stunning, impossible to miss when the red floodlights blaze to life and beckon passersby to get a glimpse of the past.
“Someone else said ‘museum’ and that sort of caught on,” Rice says with quiet pride.
The Santa Rosa, California, native is owner and operator of the showcase-storefront downtown, working alongside sons Jeremiah and Bayley.
In fact, the bulk of the business is online, Rice added, connecting collectors across the world with vintage memorabilia. From eBay to Etsy to Amazon and beyond, the local brick-and-mortar is a carefully curated display case for the enterprise, with plenty of breathing room between vehicles, clocks of all kinds, models, hot rod toys, authentic and antique garage décor and more.
In the mix are family memories, first cars (and first tickets), road trips and restorations as well as the gleaming chrome of a young man’s first and lasting love.
The 1938 property had seen better days before the Rice family put blood, sweat, tears and motor oil into 222 S. Main.
“It’s a beautiful art deco building,” Rice said, happy to do the site justice.
After moving to Gladewater from California in 2023 with the purchase of Walker Manor, Rice initially operated out of a 30-by-70 shop on that spot. It worked, for a while – the cars, collectibles and commerce demanded more.
“We ended up seeing this building over a year ago,” Rice said. “We decided to purchase it and bring it back to life.”
It’s quickly become a new anchor for traffic and energy on the southern tip of downtown. It’s spacious enough – for the time being – to give Rice what he needs most.
“It’s a better place to warehouse the cars.”
Especially with more incoming.
That’s been the theme for decades: Rice has bought and sold, collected, cultivated and carefully cleaned up several hundred vehicles in his lifetime.
Some stay for years. Some come and go. Since moving to East Texas, he’s sold five or six and bought a couple more.
And, of course, there are the ones he’ll never sell.
“They all have a little bit of a story,” he said. “The cars look good in here. Now I’ve got room to buy more.”
Among the collection is a mid-century Austin Healey. It’s one of three Rice bought for a grand total of $700 when he was 13 years-old.
“That was supposed to be my first car,” he says with a laugh, but the plan changed after a first ride-along with dad. “We took it for a ride, and he thought it was too fast for me,” he said.
To this day, the car has only about 3,200 miles on it. A hammer Rice handmade decades ago is still in the trunk. A few feet away is another DIY treasure, a dune buggy he crafted in the early ’60s.
A few years later brought a 1972 AMX, a limited-edition model that now sits on the opposite side of 222. Rice’s father built one for his mother just like it, he said, except hers was blue.
It has a key distinction. A couple, in fact.
“That’s what I drove for my license test,” Rice said, “and got my first ticket in.”
The citation for ‘Exhibitionist Speed’ didn’t slow him down for long. The AMX also holds a precious memory – Rice behind the wheel, racing with a best buddy in the passenger seat and mom in the back.
The stories are still being written, of course. Take the 1959 Ford convertible, for example: purchased in Fort Worth, Rice drove it to California and, eventually, to East Texas and its new home.
East Texas Speed specializes in vintage collectibles, with a simple rule: “Everything’s for sale – except for the cars.”
There are the jukeboxes, full-size and miniature, plus vintage signs and even some anachronisms (i.e. the impressive examples of taxidermy, hanging high). There’s a 1948 Whizzer motorbike as well as a Wurlitzer closing in on a century.
Focused on the classic, Rice aims to keep the business evolving. T-shirts, hats and other modern memorabilia are joining the vintage stock. A Gladewater-dedicated line is in the works, tying the family even more into their chosen community.
The Rice men have already added warehouse space to the back of the property, and more expansion is planned.
“We’re going to add another eventually,” he said, “for more car storage.”
Naturally.
– By JAMES DRAPER
