Chief Auto Parts was a United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

-based auto parts store chain and had stores located in the states of Tennessee

Tennessee

Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

, Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

, Nevada

Nevada

Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...

, Arizona

Arizona

Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...

, Arkansas

Arkansas

Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...

 and California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

. Chief was founded in 1955 in Norwalk, California

Norwalk, California

Norwalk is a suburban city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The population was 105,549 at the 2010 census, up from 103,298 at the 2000 census, making it the 58th most populous city in California and the 255th nationally....

. It was purchased by Southland Corporation in 1979, along with Citgo

Citgo

CITGO Petroleum Corporation is a United States-incorporated, Venezuela-owned refiner, transporter and marketer of transportation fuels, lubricants, petrochemicals and other industrial products. The company is owned by PDV America, Inc., an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Petróleos de...

 and Movie Quik

Movie Quik

Movie-Quik were video rentals offered inside 7-Eleven stores based in the United States. It ran as a division of Southland Corporation until the early 1990s. The movies were merchandised on the first gondola at the front of the store and were visible through the front window. Movie-Quik stocked...

. The company was based in Dallas, Texas

Dallas, Texas

Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...

 and operated as a division of Southland Corporation until 1990. The division was then sold to General Electric

General Electric

General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...

. Chief merged with Memphis, Tennessee

Memphis, Tennessee

Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....

 based AutoZone

AutoZone

AutoZone is a retailer and distributor of aftermarket automotive parts and accessories. based in Memphis, Tennessee.-History:Originally a division of Memphis-based wholesale grocer Malone & Hyde, the company went under the name Auto Shack...

 in 1998. From 1992 until its merger with AutoZone, the company's CEO was David H. Eisenberg.

Former stores

The former Chief stores were converted into AutoZone stores or closed. Chief was considered another convenience concept of 7-Eleven

7-Eleven

7-Eleven is part of an international chain of convenience stores, operating under Seven-Eleven Japan Co. Ltd, which in turn is owned by Seven & I Holdings Co...

; many of the stores were open 24 hours a day. Many Chief stores were adjacent to 7-Eleven stores, or were in stand-alone buildings. 7-Eleven called them "convenience auto parts stores."

Popular culture

In the show MXC

MXC

MXC was an American comedy television program that aired on Spike TV from 2003 to 2007. It is a re-edit of footage from the Japanese game show Takeshi's Castle which originally aired in Japan from 1986 to 1989...

, Chief Otto Parts is the name of a character portraying a Native American

Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...

.