About KC
engineering
K.C. Engineering was started by Kenneth Joseph Cresci and
Robert Paden Jones, and have been in business since
1976 , and will soon be celabrating our
THIRTY SECOND ANIVERSARY , we are in
fact SAN FRANCISCO'S OLDEST SINGULARLY
OWNED MOTORCYCLE SHOP. In the beginning ,our focus
was on drag racing and drag racing motors or engines, thus the name
" KC Engineering." With the help of Ken's father, (Gus), Bob
and Ken opened up at their first location, located in a garage in
the Sunset District of San Francisco. (Gus (August Cresci
)remained an integral part of K.C. Engineering until he sucumed to
cancer in 1999) He was and is sorely missed! In those days we
worked on engines only, not whole motorcycles. We
always had engines on all three of our
engines stands. In 1980, we moved to a new location
at 12th Avenue and Geary Boulevard (an old service station).
Always in San Francisco, we would stay at that location till
1986.
In 1981 Ken hired a young man named Francisco
Chavez. He was new to this country and came to live here with
his wife and daughter. He was a mechanic in the military
working on helicopters, jeeps and even army tanks! In
his Country, he had raced motocross and bared the scars
to prove it! Back then, Francisco was hired as a
third line mechanic. With his present extensive experience
and ever-increasing knowledge, most now consider Francisco to be
the finest motorcycle mechanic in the San Francisco Bay area.
He had then and still has now, a "make it work and get it done"
kind of attitude, Francisco and Ken have been working
together for longer than most other shops have even been in
existence!
Sometime in the early 1980s, we realized that the
high-performance motor work that our company was founded
on, was no longer the good business it was before. Ken
hired his old friend, Ed Hooke, back in 1983. They looked
around at the inside of the old service station filled with lathes
,valve grinding equipment, and hydraulic presses. They knew
the time was near when engine/ machine work alone would not support
them. The inside of that old sheet metal building was filled
with two tiers of tire racks all the way around the inside.
So Ken, and his manager Ed, filled the building with tires, all the
way to the rafters! It was a great idea on Eddie's part, and
Ed remained Ken's loyal friend and manager until his death in
1998.
In 1986 K.C. Engineering moved to our present location
at 689 Harrison Street near the corner of Third Street. Our
inventory has now grown from 200 to over 1600
tires! In changing over to a tire based business, it
became obvious that we couldn't stock just tires. We
began investing in a very large inventory, including brake pads,
shoes, and rotors. The tire business brought the customers
in, but once they got there, they had questions about other types
of work, and other parts that they might be able to
purchase.
Through time and experience we began to stock (and still do!)
the largest inventory of batteries, brakes, shock absorbers, chains
and sprockets, electrical devices of every kind in the Bay
Area. When ever a customer called for a part we didn't
have, a member of our staff would order it, and make
sure that part was never again out of stock. As a
result our shop now has a very large inventory of clutch ,
brakes, throttle, and choke cables, as well as levers of every type
and size, etc.
We then began to purchase and fabricate equipment and
machines that would allow us to repair, weld, braise , spot
weld, press and straighten mag wheels, as well as handlebars, some
frames, you name it! When customers came here for
tires, they knew then(and still know today ) that
whatever they need, KC Engineering can do it, usually while
the bike is still on the lift!
Nowadays when people ask; what does KC Engineering
do? A better question would be what
doesn't KC Engineering do?
