Vic Edelbrock Jr.

By Shannon Wetzel, Senior Editor 

Upon arriving at Edelbrock Corp. headquarters in Torrance, Calif., for the initial research for a profile story on the automotive aftermarket giant, our expectation was to have a brief interview with owner Vic Edelbrock Jr. before being shuffled off to a plant manager for a tour.  So imagine our surprise when our entire day in Southern California across two manufacturing facilities was hosted by Edelbrock himself, the iconic owner of the iconic company. It felt a little like receiving a tour of Microsoft with Bill Gates.

If you are a car lover or racing fan, you know Edelbrock. The name has been associated with cars that are fast and fun to drive for 70 years. The company was started by Edelbrock’s father, Vic Edelbrock Sr., who was a car mechanic and part-time dry lake racer turned design engineer. When Vic Edelbrock Jr. was handed the company’s wheel at the age of 26 after his father’s death, he steered it—based on his fathers’ work ethic and philosophies on quality and performance—from a 10-person shop to a 500-plus employee corporation.

The journey took vision, energy and tons of hands-on work. Edelbrock brought it all to the driver’s seat.

He grew up in the Edelbrock Corp. shop, learning the tools of the trade and listening to his father and friends talk cars—the beginning of a love affair.

Today, he races and collects his own cars, attends car shows to mingle with fellow hobbyists, keeps a close eye on product development and is always keeping an eye open for the next niche market to open up. He even makes it a point to visit the company’s off-site metalcasting facility, which casts manifolds and cylinder heads for Edelbrock’s product line and outside customers, at least once a week.

So while it was thrilling to be shown around the nooks and crannies of the company by Edelbrock himself, it became clear that it is what should have been expected.

Dry Lakes to Blacktop

Edelbrock Corp.’s first foray into part design was with an intake manifold Vic Edelbrock Sr. created for hot rod cars that competed in dry lake races. The performance of the manifold gained notoriety, and soon, Edelbrock Corp. had a catalog of parts available to hot rod enthusiasts and race car drivers.

Over the years, the company has grown to produce parts for an increasing variety of cars. The 50s, 60s and 70s brought in muscle cars to accompany the enthusiasm for hot rods, and now Edelbrock Corp. must predict which classic car models will grow in popularity next.

“In this business, you have to look for openings,” Vic Edelbrock Jr. said. “It’s very hard to forecast because it just depends on us and what our research and development can set up.”

Edelbrock Corp.’s customer base consists of automobile enthusiasts who are looking to restore vintage cars and improve their performance. The company also continues to be involved in racing and is the official independent manifold maker for NASCAR.
The company’s role in racing is a two-way track. Edelbrock Corp.’s research and development team has helped improve the performance of dozens of NASCAR automobiles, while the racing organization presses the manifold and cylinder head maker to continue to tweak its designs for a better engine.

NASCAR’s demands may be more stringent than the typical car enthusiast’s, but many of the features of NASCAR parts filter down into the mainstream market. Racing makes up 25% of Edelbrock Corp.’s business, but it affects most of the products under it.

“The mainstream customers want what would be considered a performance car,” Edelbrock said. “For instance, there is a niche market for ’80s and ’90s Camaros that people are buying and modifying with manifolds, heads, fuel injections and throttle bodies that we cast in aluminum, and we make the car perform the way that person in that niche wants.”

With a timeframe spanning nine decades, vintage car enthusiasts have a large pool of car types from which to choose, and Edelbrock Corp. is forever trying to pinpoint what will be the next popular model. The formula for forecasting mixes a little bit of premonition with product development. For instance, recently the company recognized an increase in activity surrounding the Chevrolet 409, so it began developing product for that model.

Castings Move In-House

When Vic Edelbrock Jr. found himself behind the wheel of the automotive aftermarket company his father had started, he was surrounded by loyal—and knowledgeable—people who had worked at Edelbrock Corp. from the beginning. They helped ease the transition after his father’s death in 1962.

“My father had a lot of great friends that looked over my shoulder,” Edelbrock said.

Keeping those individuals who had proven their value to the company was a skill of Vic Edelbrock Sr.’s that was passed on to his son. Throughout its first few decades, Edelbrock Corp. relied on Buddy Bar Castings, South Gate, Calif., to produce all of its manifolds and cylinder heads. But as the company grew, Vic Edelbrock Jr. began to toy with the idea of making the castings in-house.

He was happy with the relationship between the Edelbrock Corp. and Buddy Bar’s manager, Ron Webb, but he had a vision that would require expanded capacity that Buddy Bar did not have the room for. He wanted to move further into the cylinder head business, which required a new alloy (A356 as opposed to 808 aluminum alloy for the manifolds) and the ability to pour larger castings. Edelbrock also saw that not many green sand metalcasting facilities were available to produce the size and volume of parts that he would need.

When Edelbrock learned that Webb was leaving Buddy Bar, the decision was made for him. He quickly enlisted Webb to help build and run the corporation’s own facility. Built in 1989, the green sand facility spans 100,000 sq. ft. and operates three molding lines. Edelbrock Corp. also produces its own cores and heat treats most of its NASCAR parts and cylinder heads.

“Ron Webb was a real foundryman that they had there [at Buddy Bar],” Edelbrock said. “You need that for a successful metalcasting facility.”

The transition to an in-house facility was a successful one. So much so that in 2007, Edelbrock expanded its casting capabilities by adding a separate permanent mold shop and heat treating facility to counter the growing number of permanent mold castings produced by the company’s European competitors.

Edelbrock visits weekly the two casting facilities, which are a short trip from the Torrance headquarters. He makes it a point to run them according to the philosophy his father used when the company first started: Always make what you want and what you want to sell to your customer. And make sure it works.

For Edelbrock, running the casting facilities helps to achieve that philosophy. “I wanted to control my own destiny,” he said. “I saw building an in-house metalcasting facility as a way to do that.”

The permanent mold casting facility was added in 2007 to mesh with the future of the company. Most of the parts from Edelbrock Corp.’s European competitors are produced in permanent mold. Green sand continues to be the main casting process and still produces the quality of parts desired, but Edelbrock Corp. needed more capacity.

Permanent mold has higher tooling costs but can produce stronger, denser and better looking castings. Most of  Edelbrock Corp.’s manifolds and cylinder heads are still produced in green sand, but efforts are underway to cut permanent mold tooling costs to make it more economical for smaller volumes. With the two processes in place, Edelbrock is able to ship about 10-15% of its metalcasting production to outside customers.

The design and prototyping department also benefits from the knowledge and responsiveness of the in-house metalcasting facility. The design team and metalcasting engineers work together to create a part that can be cast successfully and economically while still meeting the performance and aesthetic requirements.

“On the superchargers, for instance, we have a very complicated casting that is the center of that system, and it takes good foundry minds to figure out how you are going to make it where you don’t have holes where holes shouldn’t be,” Edelbrock said. “Having that at your doorstep really makes a difference. There’s no sense in designing it if you can’t make it right.”

Enduring Market

Because it serves enthusiasts who own their cars as a hobby, the automotive aftermarket is not tied closely to the automobile industry, and according to Edelbrock, the company typically has been able to distance itself from the U.S. automobile industry’s recent pains. In fact, in other periods of a slow economy, Edelbrock Corp. saw an increased interest from those who would rather refurbish a used car than purchase a new one.

The most recent economic downturn has been a little different. Even when customers take into account the relatively good gas mileage of a rebuilt engine and the appeal of spending less on a used car than a new one, the money spent in the automotive aftermarket is still discretionary dollars. Rebuilding a hobby car is low on the priority list when money is tight. 

But Edelbrock has faith in his company and the industry. According to him, restoring cars is not a passing trend. “The love affair people have with their cars is so great,” he said. “We know the enthusiasm will be there when we get out of [the recession].” ECS