Bud Perry’s chair still sits next to the counter. He started the Springfield tire-and-wheel shop back in 1958, a time when cars and racing were big.
Things have changed since the shop’s start. Local racing’s heyday zoomed into the past. Route 66 – where the shop has sat for decades – wandered to decline and then to resurgence. Bud left, too; he died in 2017.
But Mike Perry, his son, says sometimes it feels like he’s never left.
Mike Perry is the second-generation owner of Bud’s Tire & Wheel.
“Just tires, but he’s made a good living selling tires,” Perry says of the business. “Here's the funny thing of it – I say it like it’s his business. I just still run it.”
Today, the shop is a stop for travelers on Route 66. Perhaps they’re drawn by the colorful murals on the shop’s east side that were installed a couple of decades or so ago. Or maybe, in this Route 66 centennial year, it’s due to the vintage car Perry placed out front, asking passersby to sign it like a giant scrapbook. Other times, it’s for photos or a soda they can buy from a cooler inside the shop.
Leslie “Bud” Perry’s chair still sits inside his namesake tire and wheel shop along Route 66 in Springfield.
While Perry enjoys those interactions, he says the shop’s true mission — never mechanics, just tires and wheels — goes way beyond Route 66. It began in 1958 after his father decided to open a wheel warehouse.
“Everybody kind of laughed at him and said, ‘Oh, that's just a fad. Nobody's gonna do that,’” Perry says of a time when there were just three or four different types of custom wheels.
“He was more a gearhead; always wanting to go faster and making things look nicer. Everybody said he was just going to warehouse these wheels and sell them to other distributors. They didn’t think it was going to last. So he just opened up his own shop and the rest is history.
“He had a vision that he wanted to work, and it did.”
A history of Ozarks racing
The shop wasn’t originally located where it sits today. In its early years, it was located on west Route 266.
When the elder Perry decided to move a few years later, he pondered two choices: Out on today’s James River Freeway, or where the shop currently is located at the intersection of College Street and Grant Avenue.
Visitors are asked to sign the vintage car in honor of Route 66’s centennial in 2026.
“He wanted this down here because, at that point, that was before the Battlefield Mall, they were going to put a roof over the square and all the stores would be downtown,” Perry says.
That plan to revitalize the Springfield square didn’t unfold quite as planned, but Perry says his father wasn’t upset. And today, it’s led to a front-row seat to the resurgence of the Mother Road that has visitors from all over the world stopping at the shop.
But long before Route 66 made its resurgance, another cultural focus centered on the shop: racing.
Just a few of many photos that line the walls at Bud’s Tire & Wheel to remind of past races.
The sport still occurs at tracks across the region today, but historically it was an even bigger deal. That foundation even led to some local drivers ending up in NASCAR.
“As sure as Americans developed a love affair with automobiles, the Ozarks loved racing,” notes a 2015 Springfield News-Leader article. “It became a major portion of Ozarks culture in the 1960s and 1970s, when fans would pack the grandstands on Friday nights at the Fairgrounds.”
The elder Perry was there for those moments: First a driver, and then a supporter, and was ultimately inducted into the Ozarks Area Racers Association Hall of Fame in 2002.
Perry “became known as one of the nation’s first ‘tire shop at the track’ operations where he not only sold racing tires, but also mounted them,” noted the News-Leader upon his induction.
Carrying on through a second generation
Images of that Ozarks racing heritage line the shop’s walls, reminding of sponsored cars and memories that live on even though some eras have passed. The younger Perry never raced himself, but he’s seen a lot working at the shop since he was a teenager.
“I pretty much knew at a young age that I was going to do this,” Perry says of running the shop. “Don't get me wrong, I had lots of friends in school … but with me being up here with my dad, all his friends were my friends, and they were all the time playing jokes on me. Kidding me, and having fun with me.
A few of the options on display at Bud’s Tire & Wheel.
“When I was 14, I started coming up here, and Dad said, ‘Keep the place clean and I'll buy your lunch.’ At that time – you’re talking in the early ‘70s – that was a big treat to get to eat out. Then that turned in to me doing a little work around here; I got about almost 16 and Dad said, ‘I’ll help you get a car, and you can just work it off.’ So we did that and I worked it off in a couple of years. Then about 21 I got married, and he said, ‘Let me see if I can help you get a place and then you can work it off.’
“I tell everyone I’m still working it off.”
That work is also supported by Tonnia Perry, his wife. Although the couple has been married for more than 40 years, it was the elder Perry who hired his daughter-in-law to work at the shop a few years ago.
Bud’s murals are a draw for passersby on the Mother Road.
“Dad hired her because he knew he wasn’t going to be around much longer,” his son says. “She’s a big part of this, too.”
While things have changed over time, the shop is still a hub for tires and wheels.
“I have people come from as far north as Sedalia and as far south as Harrison,” Perry says. There are more options east of Springfield, he says, but notes they also go to Kansas.
And today, a good chunk of Bud’s business is still in racing.
Bud’s Tire & Wheel is located at the intersection of College Street and Grant Avenue in Springfield.
“I still sell lots of race tires,” Perry says. “I ship them in the four-state area, all around. American Racer tires — we sell them. Custom wheels – it has its times. It’ll go a year or two and we’ll sell a lot of wheels and then it’ll taper off. There’s so many wheels and so many cars out there, that a lot of the wheels on the road right now are already discontinued. So if someone ruins one, they generally have to buy a set of four.”
That Route 66 era is now front and center, too, from those murals to the car out front. Perry says his father was visionary in his work — first with wheels and tires, and later with those murals. In 2013, he was honored with Springfield’s John T. Woodruff Award, which is presented to individuals instrumental in the continuing promotion of Route 66.
Now, that work continues through the “guestbook” car, connecting people in spirit who will likely never meet in person.
“More groups will be coming through here,” Perry says. “And they stop and they all sign it. Lots of them from Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Canada, and, of course, all over the United States.”
Want to visit?
Bud’s Tire & Wheel is located at 701 W. College St., Springfield.
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