Speed Equipment History - (Part One)

When we look back at the past, especially with the hindsight of some aging, people and events tend to take on a varnish of drama and romance akin to the patina on Renaissance artwork, or the now-fashionable mystery bedecked, "barn-found" treasures of the rad rod set. The interwoven history of hot rodding, racing, street rodding, and the aftermarket companies that developed the hardware to support these pursuits is one that needs no fictional embellishments to make a fascinating chronicle. If anything, the characters and exploits in this story are colorful enough that some of the true facts need to be scaled back to make the narrative appear less contrived!

It's a tale big enough for a book, and in fact a number of fine books have been done already, but for our allotted pages here, we chose to encapsulate a moment in hot rod history and follow the characters to fame or obscurity. We're going to look at one publication, the SCTA racing program, from the 1948 season opening race at the El Mirage dry lake. In it, there are some 21 advertisers of speed equipment. Some of the names have faded from the memory of all but the old-timers, and others have become industry giants from their humble beginnings in those glory days. One facet all of these companies and people had in common was the psyche of the time, which included the all-American desire to tinker and build-the inventor spirit born of necessity, lack of funds, and the need for speed and adventure found in all young men.

Racing, in one form or another, has been around since long before the car was developed, but with the collision of that sport with this particular mode of transport, a reaction was set off that continues to accelerate a century later. Plank-surfaced board tracks, dusty dirt ovals, and paved bullrings across the country put on a loud, dangerous, and stimulating show from the 'teens on that spread the romantic image of the fast car and the hero driver. Henry Ford unintentionally set us off on a path that would lead to entire TV networks devoted to auto racing, by mass manufacturing the T, as durable and adaptable as it was inexpensive. If the only vehicles on the market back then were Duesies, Pierces, and Packards, the hot rod movement could never have reached the widespread grassroots growth it has seen in America in the last 100 years.

The thrill-packed racing at the "serious" venues inflamed a generation to strip down and hop up their cheap transportation Ts and Chevys for street performance and impromptu racing, even if it was just to outrun the Keystone Kops. As the Tin Lizzie was the basis for most hot rods, what we know of today as the automotive aftermarket originally began with speed and custom accessories for the T, available at auto parts stores. Eventually, even the giant Sears Roebuck catalog (the "Thrift Book of a Nation") had a dozen pages strictly for cool Ford stuff. The ancestor of today's giant consumer parts catalogs, Sears offered everything from exhaust cutouts ($1.20) to bigger carburetors ($4.85) to complete speedster bodies.

As universal as the appeal of going and looking fast may have been, there was something about the West, California in particular, that spawned a disproportionately huge interest in motorvation. Maybe it was the climate, the soil, or something in the dry air, but red-blooded, all-American hot rodding really took root in the "land of fruits and nuts." Car clubs were everywhere, and the bonding of comrades, the sharing of talents and parts, and friendly competition further accelerated the growth of the subculture. Out in the desert areas, northeast of Los Angeles, nature had dried up several small lakes and fire hardened their silty surfaces into the most perfect, free racecourses you could ask for. These dry lakes-Muroc, Harper, El Mirage, and Rosamond-played stage to both famous race drivers in search of official speed records and hordes of dirt-under-the-nails regular guys with hopped-up four-barrels (four-cylinder engines).

By the early '30s, the lakes were humming most every weekend with hot rods, Depression be damned. Speed activity had spread to the streets as well-the beginning of a poor public image of car tinkerers that would last several more decades. The number of clubs and disparity of rules finally led to the establishment of the SCTA (Southern California Timing Association) in 1937 to come up with uniform safety rules. By the time of our program, the association consisted of more than 700 members in some 37 clubs. That's a lot of plaques and jackets!

At this point, the business of speed equipment was far from being an "industry." There were a host of high-compression flat aftermarket heads for Ts and As, several popular overhead conversions, a few one- and two-pot downdraft intake manifolds, and some improved magneto ignitions. Some names produced less than a dozen parts, others hung in and had limited popularity. At this juncture, it took a war (and once again, Henry Ford) to spur real development. In the pivotal year of 1941, the hot rodders were chased off of the Muroc dry lake to make way for a military facility (Edwards Air Force Base). Like most other young Americans, hot rodders enlisted in droves and, while in the service, often improved their mechanical skills and learned new ones that would serve them well in peacetime-like machining, casting, and metalworking. The boys itched to get back to their cars after the war ended, and lakebed racing really burgeoned from then on. We don't know what nature had intended for these lakes, but for those individual hot rodders who saw needs for new equipment, they became virtual dynamometers and testbeds.

When a guy went fast with some new piece of equipment he had made, his friends wanted one like it and new manufacturing skills led to some kind of production speed equipment. Ol' Henry's unwitting contribution to all this was again mass production of affordable cars, this time with the first cheap V-8 engines. Although it had been out since '32, the Flathead didn't really dominate the lakes until after the war. When the first Flathead V-8s began appearing at the lakes, they could hit the "century mark," but modifieds with four-bangers were 30 mph faster! By the time of the SCTA program we're examining, everybody was trying to make that bent-eight lump of iron go faster, and many now-famous companies owe their start to those days. In our program, the listing of the race entries considered the engine equipment very important information, and included in each car's stats: engine, head(s), manifold (intake), camshaft, and ignition system. These categories of equipment were the weak points of the Flathead when used for higher rpms and consequently were the most studied and improved avenues for speed equipment.

Intake Manifolds
You didn't have to be a genius to guess that the parallel mods of whacking the muffler off the bottom of an engine and installing something on top that put more fuel into the engine would make a car go faster. Adding a bigger carburetor was probably everyone's first engine mod, and there were a wide variety of aftermarket choices. Arguably the first hot setup was a simple, bolt-on adapter, either welded up or cast, that allowed you to install two carburetors where the engine had originally only had one. When that proved helpful, real genius was then actually needed to find out how to make these two carbs flow better. Listed in our program were the now-well-known names of Edelbrock, Weiand, and Offenhauser who established their credibility in this hotly contested arena.

Vic Edelbrock Sr. bought a Deuce roadster in '38, and he and Tommy Thickstun (who later made his own speed equipment) designed a two-pot manifold to try at the lakes. Like most of the other young men, Vic would strip off the fenders and windshield when he got to the lakebed, then go for it. Vic later made an improved manifold design of his own called the Slingshot. His racing success and selling 100 Slingshots led to the start of one of the biggest companies currently in our industry. So rich is the history that Edelbrock currently has a book for sale ("Edelbrock, Made In USA," by Tom Madigan) documenting the story.

Weiand and Offenhauser also continue to this day, with the former now a part of the Holley group, and Offenhauser making limited runs of their many popular performance and "nostalgia" intakes. Other advertisers in our program included Eddie Meyer, Barney Navarro, Tattersfield-Baron, and Evans Equipment. All of these men made speed equipment and, in constant competition with each other, had success in lakes records over the years. Eddie and Bud Meyer were quite involved in circle track racing, primarily Midgets and what started in the '40s as "roadster" racing. After the war, the CRA (California Roadster Association) was formed to run oval races with dual-purpose roadsters that could run lakes or track. The T, A, and Deuce roadster donor pool eventually dried up, but the organization continued as the California Racing Association, organizing what we know as purpose-built Sprint Cars. Today, CRA has joined with another famous racing acronym as USAC-CRA.

Barney Navarro was another inveterate experimenter, but with legitimate engineering behind his speed theories. He started out with a free A-bone in which he installed a Hudson engine, since that is what he had. At the night school auto shop, he machined away the siamesed head until he had two extra ports, and had one of the welding students close up the wounds. It ran decently and was the start of a lifetime of designing, testing, and thinking "outside the box." He became the tech editor of Hop Up magazine and wrote for a number of magazines through his 50s. Later on, he worked extensively on AMC-Rambler engines and built a twin-turbo Rambler six that gave up 700 hp from 199ci-it was destined for an Indy car. Until recently, he was still making limited runs of his Flathead intakes and heads. Barney was probably the first rodder to install a GMC huffer on a flatmotor. When we last saw him at one of the Dry Lakes Hall of Fame events, he was in animated conversation with Ed Iskenderian, discussing Flathead engine mods like they were both still in the '40s.

Our other intake makers have faded from the scene. Eddie Meyer became heavily involved in boat racing and gradually got out of the speed equipment business. Limited copies of his manifolds and heads were made in recent years by well-known rodder Don Orosco of Monterey, California. Tommy Thickstun had been in the forefront of intake development as both an engineer and a pattern maker, working with such names as Vic Edelbrock, Bob Tattersfield, and Frank Baron. Tommy passed away in 1946 at the early age of 34. Tattersfield, of Electric & Carburetor Engineering Company in downtown Los Angeles, continued making his own speed equipment until 1952, but some of his designs were carried on by Ansen after that. Baron also got out of the speed parts in the mid-'50s, but luckily for Flathead nostalgia fans, his son, Tony, carries on, not only with old and new designs under the Baron Racing name, but also has new castings of Thickstun manifolds and the same Tattersfield-Baron four-carb racing manifold advertised in our 1948 program. Evan's Equipment advertised "the best performance for all 24-stud V-8 and Mercury engines." Earl Evans not only made manifolds, intakes, and other equipment, he ran a string of very successful lakes/Bonneville cars.

Cylinder Heads
Early on in the Flathead era, aftermarket heads were rare. What few were available were too expensive for the average kid on the street who would have his stock heads milled for more compression, or have the head chambers "filled and milled" with weld to do the job. But since no valvetrain parts were involved, casting high-compression heads for a Flathead was much simpler than making a modern OHV head, thus within a few more years, there were quite a few to choose from. In our 1948 program, finned, high-compression heads were widely available from any parts house or "speed shop" that carried brands such as Edelbrock, Evans, Weiand, Navarro, Meyer, and Offenhauser.

Another company in our program was Cannon Engineering in North Hollywood. Their specialty was custom engine building and machine work, including welding, porting, milling, and cam-grinding. They certainly upped the compression of many sets of Ford cast-iron heads for the economy-minded rodders of the day, starting with the four-banger crowd before the war. Ted Cannon used to tell how they had to deviate from usual procedure for customers in the Stock classes for the Mexican Road Races in the '50s. It seems officials checked the head dimensions on teardown, so these customers had the top of their blocks milled instead! Remarkably, Ted's son, Don, still carries the business on today, specializing in drivelines. Back in the '70s, they made us a custom driveshaft for the R&C Clean-Air Deuce highboy.

In the early days of the Flathead, piston availability was a limiting factor. With the stock-style flat-top pistons available, the raising of compression was mostly up to the head design. The stock compression of a little over 6:1 was designed for cheap gas and a marginally successful attempt to keep the Flatties from boiling. When the hot rodders who comprised the "aftermarket" at this time addressed the problem, their aluminum heads accomplished the rise in compression, some considerable reduction in engine weight, and the finned aluminum helped out on getting heat out of the engine. Of course, they looked cool, too. With minor casting/machining differences in the same head, street compression ratios could be produced from 7:1 to over 8:1, and racing versions offered 8.5:1 to 10:1. The interesting thing from today's vantage point is how many such heads were made for engines we wouldn't guess were popular. Six-cylinder engines were also candidates for a dual or triple intake manifold and a finned, high-compres-sion head (Flatheads); Weiand advertised a head for Studebaker sixes, Edelbrock had them for the Lincoln Flathead V-8, and other companies served the needs of speed/economy seekers with Hudsons and some other cars.

In the second installment of this story, we'll look at the pioneers in camshafts, ignition systems, and engine builders, and a retailer, and try to sum up the incredible advances of the hot rod/speed equipment business from after the Flathead era to the bewildering array of professionally made products we enjoy today for customizing and hot rodding basically the same types of cars these early pioneers were fooling with. We won't talk about inflation, or the $50 Deuce roadsters they could get!