Merchants of Speed: The Men Who Built America's Performance Industry

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Book Description Hot rodding has always been about taking something that Detroit built and making it leaner and faster. At the epicenter of the movement was a cast of driven men who designed and manufactured the parts that made it all possible. This book takes an appreciative look back at the early hot rodders who worked out of their garages, basements, and backyards, and the "speed equipment" they developed. In this mammoth volume, Paul Smith examines the stories behind two dozen speed equipment manufacturers and the go-fast goodies they designed, developed, and sold. Drawing upon hundreds of hours of interviews conducted with these founding fathers of hot rodding, Smith details the work of industry icons such as Iskenderian, Edelbrock, Evans, Hilborn, Navarro, Offenhauser, Sharp, Weiand, Ansen, and Kong. Illustrated with more than 200 period photos and filled with firsthand accounts of the birth of hot rodding—and the automotive aftermarket industry—this book is a truly fitting celebration of the names that became synonymous with speed.

Just Customz Review

This book is for budding automotive historians everywhere and describes how the all majority of the big names in performance parts came into existance. This is a very big book packed with pictures from the various companies founders private collections showing the small garages and workshops where it all began.

Through the book many of the founders tell their tales of the relentless quest to go faster and the lengths they went to to achive this, sometimes leading to the inevitable accident.

The following big-names are listed in the book without whom the hot-rodding world maybe a very different (and slower) place:

• Ansen
• Braje
• Crane
• Edelbrock
• Engle
• Evans
• Herbert
• Hilborn
• Howards
• Iskenderian
• McGurk
• Navarro
• Offenhauser
• Potvin
• Scott
• Sharp
• Spalding
• Tattersfield-Baron
• Thickstun
• Wayne
• Weber
• Weiand
• Wilson

Here's the rare adjustable roller cam decal that was to adverstise a one-shot, cure-all lifter.

In 1960 Mickey Thompson ran his Challenger Streamliner to an all-out speed of 406 miles per hour using fuel injection.

About The Author

A longtime hot rod and drag racing enthusiast, Paul D. Smith split his time between Southern California and his native Canada while writing and researching this, his first book. Today he resides in Orillia, Ontario.