STANDARD MOTOR PRODUCTS, INC.

Standard Motor Products was founded in Manhattan in 1919 as a partnership between Elias Fife, a Jewish immigrant from Lithuania, and Ralph Van Allen to specialize in ignition and electrical parts. In 1920, Van Allen opened a Standard Motor Products branch in Seattle, and the following year, the company moved to the Long Island City section of Queens. After the partnership dissolved in 1925, the company was incorporated with Fife as the sole proprietor in 1926. Van Allen operated a separate company in Los Angeles under the same name and logo until selling it to Fife in 1936, the same year SMP moved into the Art Deco building where it remains headquartered today.