SEMA News - August 2009

By Alysha Webb

Paying Off in Business Contracts and Contacts

Toyota and BMW have done “quite well” emphasizing personalization with their Scion and Mini brands, says Fred Aikins, senior product manager for Kia Motors America. Kia aims to emulate that success with the Soul.

“This car should produce big business for us,” says Zambrano.

As automakers come out with more models specifically designed for personalization, attending measuring sessions is becoming ever more important for SEMA members. The sessions are an opportunity to get data and ideas for aftermarket products for new vehicles. They’re also a great place to make contacts that could result in future business.

SEMA holds about 20 measuring sessions each year, says Bill Wolf, SEMA senior director of OEM Relations. Only manufacturing member companies are allowed to attend.

Most measuring sessions take place before the official launch, though the Soul measuring session, in May at the Kia Motors America headquarters in Irvine, Calif., was held after the vehicle’s launch.

Three Soul models were on offer, including one on a lift for easy access to the car’s underside. As for the two ground-level Souls, Wet Okole’s Zambrano crawled over one’s interior while Ralph Turner, technical support manager for American International, measured the console of the other.

American International of Camarillo, California, makes navigation and sound systems.

The company, which has about 60 employees, will get some business from the Soul right away, says Turner, though the biggest demand will come later, when buyers of used models want to upgrade.

“There’s a lot of info we can pick up here that would be hard to get at the dealership,” he says.

Making it personal

Toyota and BMW have done “quite well” emphasizing personalization with their Scion and Mini brands, says Fred Aikins, senior product manager for Kia Motors America. Kia aims to emulate that success with the Soul.

Kia will offer dozens of its own accessories for the small boxy car. But “there are some things that aftermarket companies can do better, especially those that have an impact on the warranty” says Aikins.

Engine performance upgrades or oversized wheels and tires, for example, wouldn’t meet Kia’s engineering standards, and therefore wouldn’t be covered in the manufacturer’s warranty, he says. The Soul comes with a 10-year, 100,000 mile powertrain and five-year, 60,000 mile bumper-to-bumper warranty.

Using aftermarket parts gives customers more choices, says Aikins. The aftermarket company does need to warranty the part itself, however, and customers must understand the part is not covered by the factory warranty, he says.

Spending quality time with a car isn’t the only benefit of attending a measuring session. They are also great places to make connections, says John Espino, new business and market development manager for Banks Power, a division of Gale Banks Engineering of Azusa, California.

Espino met some GM representatives at a SEMA event in 2001. Now, Banks is the exclusive distributor for the Duramax diesel engine in GM trucks.

“You have no idea how many opportunities lie through these connections,” says Espino.

They can also lead to advance knowledge of what will change—or stay the same—in an upcoming model, says Espino, which “helps tremendously with getting products out on time.”

SEMA sends an e-mail blast to its database of interested companies three to four weeks in advance of a measuring session, says SEMA’s Wolf. Notices also run in the association’s weekly electronic newsletter, eNews, and on the SEMA website

Companies that don’t want to travel to measuring sessions can still get a model’s measurements, Wolf explains. Sometimes the CAD files will be online before the launch, he says. That was true for Toyota’s Scion tC, launched in 2004. But a product still needs to be fitted to the model at some point.

Kia is launching several more models this year. Someone from Wet Okole, which has about 60 employees, will likely be at those measuring sessions too, says Wolf. He notes that the company attends all the sessions in this area.

Says Zambrano: “It’s more practical for us to come to these sessions.”

SEMA NEWS -- August 2009
HALL of FAME 2009

By Drew Hardin

Bill Perry, Rolan “Jeep” Worthan and Henry “Smokey” Yunick Join SEMA’s Prestigious Hall of Fame

Bill Perry		Henry “Smokey” Yunick		Rolan “Jeep” Worthan

It seems like everyone gets a trophy these days. Our children’s sports teams don’t keep score anymore; everyone’s a winner just for showing up. The entertainment industry spends so much time staging awards and honors presentations, it’s a wonder that films, TV shows, music and theater still get produced.

Even in our own industry, it’s hard to keep track of all the “…of the Year” statuettes that are handed out in each and every automotive niche.

The net effect of all this is an overall dilution of an award’s true meaning. When everyone gets a trophy, does that trophy matter anymore?

Here, it does—very, very much. SEMA’s Hall of Fame award isn’t something you get just for showing up. It is the highest, most prestigious honor in the entire specialty-equipment industry—an industry that encompasses some 7,100 member companies that contribute more than $31 billion to the world economy.

SEMA’s Hall of Fame is almost as old as the association itself. Created in 1969, just six years after SEMA’s formation, the Hall of Fame award recognizes those members of the automotive aftermarket whose ingenuity, enthusiasm, integrity and old-fashioned hard work formed the industry’s very foundation and shaped its growth over the past four decades. Through their various contributions, these individuals have grown our industry from a small group of pioneering speed-part manufacturers to the wide-ranging economic powerhouse it is today.

The qualifications for Hall of Fame membership are rigorous. Nominees must have contributed to the industry on a national level and have been involved with the industry, or SEMA, for a minimum of 10 years. Their contributions must be seen as enhancing the technology, professionalism or general standing of the industry, and their activities must have been performed with a high degree of integrity. Involvement with or contributions to SEMA are important considerations in the nomination process, though the nominating committee has the discretion to honor a person who has significantly contributed to the automotive aftermarket without close ties to the association.

Each of this year’s Hall of Fame inductees made very different kinds of contributions to our industry, but one trait seems to unite them: a true, deep passion for their particular automotive calling—a passion that drove them to high levels of achievement in each of their fields. It’s an honor and a pleasure to welcome Bill Perry, Jeep Worthan and Smokey Yunick to SEMA’s Hall of Fame for 2009.

Bill Perry

Writing about Bill Perry after he lost his battle with leukemia earlier this year, SEMA Chairman Jim Cozzie and SEMA President and CEO Chris Kersting paid him one of the greatest compliments you can about another individual: “Simply put, Bill was one of the good guys.”

Everyone who knew and worked with Perry agreed. Joel Rosenthal, vice president of Gantt-Thomas & Associates, considered him a mentor and called it a “true blessing” to have worked with him. John Towle, PWA’s executive director, called Perry an “honest, forthright, compassionate and competitive individual” who was “dedicated to the industry and his family.” Bill Wagner, vice president of sales and marketing for Winfield Consumer Products, said Perry’s wife, Cathy, and his sons, Chris and Michael, “were the typical Southern family, and Bill was the southern gentleman. They couldn’t do enough for you.” And Ron DiVincenzo, general manager of Cap World, summed up what many felt when he called Perry “a great leader and a role model for us all.”

Like many in the automotive aftermarket industry, Perry had an early love for fast cars. He built radio-controlled cars as a kid and raced them at tracks in his hometown of Atlanta. He started working on real cars at age 14, and by the time Cathy met him when they were attending the University of West Georgia, “he had already done all the local dragstrips,” she said.

Perry’s experience as a racer led him to a job at a local speed shop while he attended college. In 1980, he became a manufacturer’s rep with Quality Parts Sales Inc., and he took a major step in his career when he bought the company just five years later and renamed it Bill Perry & Associates (BP&A). In the years to follow, Perry expanded his agency to the point where BP&A now has seven reps covering eight southeastern states.

Perry’s relationship with SEMA pre-dates the forming of BP&A. He joined SEMA in 1977 and became very active within the association. He served on the Board of Directors and was in his third consecutive term when he passed away. He was a member of the Board’s executive committee, and he served on the Manufacturers Rep Council (MRC) select committee for a number of years. Both he and BP&A have earned numerous awards and honors from SEMA, including the MRC Hall of Fame Award in 2008 and SEMA’s Manufacturers’ Representative of the Year award.

Perry’s enthusiasm for high performance never flagged. According to Cathy, he “…always loved cars, and always had a car he was working on, even when he started his business and raised his family.”

In fact, it was that enthusiasm that took Perry’s interactions with his customers to a higher level, said Rosenthal. “He was at his best at interpersonal relationships. When he was standing in a parking lot of a retail store, talking to a product’s end user, he was that enthusiast again. His face would light up when he was talking about that part, and the racer he was talking to just sensed it. That focus on enthusiasm had a great deal of influence on how he ran his business.”

Perry was also very generous with his time, Rosenthal said, no matter how big (or small) the customer was. “A lot of people would push back from having to talk to the ‘little guy’ who might not create a big sale. But even if he was talking to a guy who would just buy one piece, you still sensed Bill’s enthusiasm.”

Perry was a spiritual man, Rosenthal said, so when you were around him, “life lessons and business lessons often intermingled. Even in tough situations you’d see his spirituality play out in how he handled things. He was never ‘in your face.’ He was a gentleman’s gentleman.”

Rolan “Jeep” Worthan

Let’s start with the nickname. “That’s a question that’s been asked of me more times than I can count,” Jeep Worthan said with a laugh. “My mom gave it to me as a baby, though she claimed she could never remember why. Maybe it was because I looked like one when I crawled around on all fours. Or maybe it had something to do with my conception.” He paused. “That usually gets a chuckle.”

Currently the vice president of marketing/sales for Auto Meter Products Inc., Worthan was a Chicago-area racer and enthusiast before he knew there was an aftermarket parts industry. By chance, he spotted an ad in the Chicago Tribune classifieds for a job at Auto Meter while recuperating from knee surgery in early 1974. He joined the company that April, and he’s been there ever since.

“In the early ’70s, Auto Meter was truly unknown,” Worthan recalled. “Everyone, including me, was using a Sun tach and Stewart Warner gauges.”

Immediately Worthan went into sales, using his experience as a racer to introduce fellow racers to Auto Meter’s products.

“I always had a love of going fast; that was my advantage,” he explained. “I had a passion and cared for the racer—the customer—and I would bring his needs back to the factory so the engineering team could develop products that the racers would want to buy.”

That strategy launched what Worthan considers the most significant product in his Auto Meter career: the Monster Tach. In 1977, Worthan took a “tach tester,” which incorporated the new electric tach, to race tracks around the country. Ostensibly, the tester would help racers calibrate their own tachometers, but once they saw how responsive Auto Meter’s gauge was compared to their own, “they became new believers,” Worthan said. “That product really helped us penetrate into racing and got the ball rolling.”

Worthan brought that same level of enthusiasm to SEMA after he experienced his first SEMA Show with Auto Meter.

“Up to then, my experience had been as a user of performance products, and suddenly here I was on the other side of the fence,” he said. “I immediately fell in love with the industry.”

It wasn’t long before he made friends in the association, one of whom was a member of the Board of Directors.

“He told me how much he enjoyed it and that I’d be perfect for it. So in the early ’80s I got on the board, and I’ve been heavily involved ever since.”

To date, Worthan has served eight terms on SEMA’s Board of Directors. “Eight and counting,” he said. “I’m running again.” He has also been involved with a number of SEMA’s councils and had a hand in the formation of the Motorsports Parts Manufacturers Council (MPMC). He’s currently an active member of MPMC, the Young Executives Network and the Hot Rod Industry Alliance, and he is the SEMA Board liaison for the MPMC. He has also been recognized by the Performance Warehouse Association (PWA) as its Person of the Year, and Auto Meter has been PWA Manufacturer of the Year four times during his tenure with the company.

“Jeep’s eighth term on the Board of Directors only scratches the surface of his involvement,” said Ron Funfar of Hedman Hedders. “He has either served on or chaired nearly every SEMA committee—many more than once. He was a charter member of the World Motorsports Society and was influential in the formation of what is now SEMA News.

“It’s not often that a person’s name is synonymous with the company he works for, but when someone says ‘Auto Meter,’ the first thing that comes to mind is Jeep Worthan,” Funfar added. “Jeep’s love and passion for this industry are unparalleled. You will not find an individual more deserving than Jeep to be inducted into the SEMA Hall of Fame.”

Henry “Smokey” Yunick

There were really two Smokey Yunicks. The first was the stuff of legends.

Henry Yunick dropped out of school as a teenager to work on his family’s Pennsylvania farm after his father died. His nickname came from a track announcer commenting on the condition of his motorcycle during a 1941 race. He joined the Army Air Corps, flew bombers and fighters in World War II, and then returned from the war to open what was at first a tiny shop in Daytona Beach, Florida, “The Best Damn Garage in Town.”

It wasn’t just bluster. First in NASCAR, then at Indy, Yunick applied his prodigious mechanical talents to making fast cars and making cars go faster. The roster of men who drove for Yunick is a Who’s Who of racing champions, from Allison (Bobby) to Vukovich (Billy). He won two NASCAR Grand National Championships as a car owner and mechanic, and he won at Indy in 1960 as the co-chief mechanic for Jim Rathmann’s Offenhauser-powered roadster.

“Indy was his love,” said Jim McFarland, who was an editor at Hot Rod magazine when he began a 40-year friendship with Yunick in the ’60s. “He came out of NASCAR but gravitated to Indy since he wasn’t bound by all the rules. He could explore more things there. The technological challenges were something that intrigued him.”

Yunick’s speed secrets could be so ground-breaking—or difficult to discern—that some hung another nickname on him: cheater.

“I get offended when I hear that,” said Trish Yunick Brown, his daughter. “He maintained he didn’t cheat. What he did was innovation. As far as he was concerned, if it didn’t say what he was doing wasn’t allowed, then it was perfectly fair. Many things that weren’t in the rulebook on the weekend became rules on Monday morning, courtesy of Smokey.”

Yunick’s talents weren’t limited to the racetrack. Pontiac, Chevrolet and Ford were among the auto makers that benefited from either his hands-on engineering or consulting work. He is credited with developing, among other components, variable-ratio power steering, reverse-flow engine cooling and the extended-tip spark plug.

He was closely involved with the development of Chevy’s small-block V-8. According to McFarland, he “…pioneered a lot of thinking that builders of aftermarket parts picked up on. He came up with a cross-ram intake that Vic [Edelbrock] built later, did cylinder head work, pioneered things ostensibly for Chevrolet that wound up in various segments of the aftermarket.”

Racer safety was a big concern of Yunick’s as well. He stopped competing in NASCAR when the sanctioning body wouldn’t let him use a fuel bladder; and he designed a “safe wall” in the ’60s that would move on contact, absorbing some of a crash’s energy.

The Yunick of legend could be blunt, even ornery. “Cantankerous, that’s a good word for it,” Trish Yunick said. But then there are the stories about the other Smokey, the one who would open his garage in the middle of the night to help a fellow racer, even if he was a competitor. Or who, in his later years, found time for a family that had learned to live without him for long stretches, especially from late April to early June.

Trish told this story about her dad’s other side:

“Smokey and John DeLorean were friends. They worked at Pontiac at the same time. Smokey called John one morning, and John was going through his first very public divorce. They didn’t talk about the divorce, but Smokey knew he wasn’t in good shape. So he hung up the phone and flew to Detroit to check on him. They talked for a while, and Smokey felt better about John, so he flew home. John later said he was thinking about killing himself that night. Smokey did have a bad side, but he really was very human.”

SEMA NEWS -- August 2009
HALL of FAME 2009

By Drew Hardin

Bill Perry, Rolan “Jeep” Worthan and Henry “Smokey” Yunick Join SEMA’s Prestigious Hall of Fame

Bill Perry		Henry “Smokey” Yunick		Rolan “Jeep” Worthan

It seems like everyone gets a trophy these days. Our children’s sports teams don’t keep score anymore; everyone’s a winner just for showing up. The entertainment industry spends so much time staging awards and honors presentations, it’s a wonder that films, TV shows, music and theater still get produced.

Even in our own industry, it’s hard to keep track of all the “…of the Year” statuettes that are handed out in each and every automotive niche.

The net effect of all this is an overall dilution of an award’s true meaning. When everyone gets a trophy, does that trophy matter anymore?

Here, it does—very, very much. SEMA’s Hall of Fame award isn’t something you get just for showing up. It is the highest, most prestigious honor in the entire specialty-equipment industry—an industry that encompasses some 7,100 member companies that contribute more than $31 billion to the world economy.

SEMA’s Hall of Fame is almost as old as the association itself. Created in 1969, just six years after SEMA’s formation, the Hall of Fame award recognizes those members of the automotive aftermarket whose ingenuity, enthusiasm, integrity and old-fashioned hard work formed the industry’s very foundation and shaped its growth over the past four decades. Through their various contributions, these individuals have grown our industry from a small group of pioneering speed-part manufacturers to the wide-ranging economic powerhouse it is today.

The qualifications for Hall of Fame membership are rigorous. Nominees must have contributed to the industry on a national level and have been involved with the industry, or SEMA, for a minimum of 10 years. Their contributions must be seen as enhancing the technology, professionalism or general standing of the industry, and their activities must have been performed with a high degree of integrity. Involvement with or contributions to SEMA are important considerations in the nomination process, though the nominating committee has the discretion to honor a person who has significantly contributed to the automotive aftermarket without close ties to the association.

Each of this year’s Hall of Fame inductees made very different kinds of contributions to our industry, but one trait seems to unite them: a true, deep passion for their particular automotive calling—a passion that drove them to high levels of achievement in each of their fields. It’s an honor and a pleasure to welcome Bill Perry, Jeep Worthan and Smokey Yunick to SEMA’s Hall of Fame for 2009.

Bill Perry

Writing about Bill Perry after he lost his battle with leukemia earlier this year, SEMA Chairman Jim Cozzie and SEMA President and CEO Chris Kersting paid him one of the greatest compliments you can about another individual: “Simply put, Bill was one of the good guys.”

Everyone who knew and worked with Perry agreed. Joel Rosenthal, vice president of Gantt-Thomas & Associates, considered him a mentor and called it a “true blessing” to have worked with him. John Towle, PWA’s executive director, called Perry an “honest, forthright, compassionate and competitive individual” who was “dedicated to the industry and his family.” Bill Wagner, vice president of sales and marketing for Winfield Consumer Products, said Perry’s wife, Cathy, and his sons, Chris and Michael, “were the typical Southern family, and Bill was the southern gentleman. They couldn’t do enough for you.” And Ron DiVincenzo, general manager of Cap World, summed up what many felt when he called Perry “a great leader and a role model for us all.”

Like many in the automotive aftermarket industry, Perry had an early love for fast cars. He built radio-controlled cars as a kid and raced them at tracks in his hometown of Atlanta. He started working on real cars at age 14, and by the time Cathy met him when they were attending the University of West Georgia, “he had already done all the local dragstrips,” she said.

Perry’s experience as a racer led him to a job at a local speed shop while he attended college. In 1980, he became a manufacturer’s rep with Quality Parts Sales Inc., and he took a major step in his career when he bought the company just five years later and renamed it Bill Perry & Associates (BP&A). In the years to follow, Perry expanded his agency to the point where BP&A now has seven reps covering eight southeastern states.

Perry’s relationship with SEMA pre-dates the forming of BP&A. He joined SEMA in 1977 and became very active within the association. He served on the Board of Directors and was in his third consecutive term when he passed away. He was a member of the Board’s executive committee, and he served on the Manufacturers Rep Council (MRC) select committee for a number of years. Both he and BP&A have earned numerous awards and honors from SEMA, including the MRC Hall of Fame Award in 2008 and SEMA’s Manufacturers’ Representative of the Year award.

Perry’s enthusiasm for high performance never flagged. According to Cathy, he “…always loved cars, and always had a car he was working on, even when he started his business and raised his family.”

In fact, it was that enthusiasm that took Perry’s interactions with his customers to a higher level, said Rosenthal. “He was at his best at interpersonal relationships. When he was standing in a parking lot of a retail store, talking to a product’s end user, he was that enthusiast again. His face would light up when he was talking about that part, and the racer he was talking to just sensed it. That focus on enthusiasm had a great deal of influence on how he ran his business.”

Perry was also very generous with his time, Rosenthal said, no matter how big (or small) the customer was. “A lot of people would push back from having to talk to the ‘little guy’ who might not create a big sale. But even if he was talking to a guy who would just buy one piece, you still sensed Bill’s enthusiasm.”

Perry was a spiritual man, Rosenthal said, so when you were around him, “life lessons and business lessons often intermingled. Even in tough situations you’d see his spirituality play out in how he handled things. He was never ‘in your face.’ He was a gentleman’s gentleman.”

Rolan “Jeep” Worthan

Let’s start with the nickname. “That’s a question that’s been asked of me more times than I can count,” Jeep Worthan said with a laugh. “My mom gave it to me as a baby, though she claimed she could never remember why. Maybe it was because I looked like one when I crawled around on all fours. Or maybe it had something to do with my conception.” He paused. “That usually gets a chuckle.”

Currently the vice president of marketing/sales for Auto Meter Products Inc., Worthan was a Chicago-area racer and enthusiast before he knew there was an aftermarket parts industry. By chance, he spotted an ad in the Chicago Tribune classifieds for a job at Auto Meter while recuperating from knee surgery in early 1974. He joined the company that April, and he’s been there ever since.

“In the early ’70s, Auto Meter was truly unknown,” Worthan recalled. “Everyone, including me, was using a Sun tach and Stewart Warner gauges.”

Immediately Worthan went into sales, using his experience as a racer to introduce fellow racers to Auto Meter’s products.

“I always had a love of going fast; that was my advantage,” he explained. “I had a passion and cared for the racer—the customer—and I would bring his needs back to the factory so the engineering team could develop products that the racers would want to buy.”

That strategy launched what Worthan considers the most significant product in his Auto Meter career: the Monster Tach. In 1977, Worthan took a “tach tester,” which incorporated the new electric tach, to race tracks around the country. Ostensibly, the tester would help racers calibrate their own tachometers, but once they saw how responsive Auto Meter’s gauge was compared to their own, “they became new believers,” Worthan said. “That product really helped us penetrate into racing and got the ball rolling.”

Worthan brought that same level of enthusiasm to SEMA after he experienced his first SEMA Show with Auto Meter.

“Up to then, my experience had been as a user of performance products, and suddenly here I was on the other side of the fence,” he said. “I immediately fell in love with the industry.”

It wasn’t long before he made friends in the association, one of whom was a member of the Board of Directors.

“He told me how much he enjoyed it and that I’d be perfect for it. So in the early ’80s I got on the board, and I’ve been heavily involved ever since.”

To date, Worthan has served eight terms on SEMA’s Board of Directors. “Eight and counting,” he said. “I’m running again.” He has also been involved with a number of SEMA’s councils and had a hand in the formation of the Motorsports Parts Manufacturers Council (MPMC). He’s currently an active member of MPMC, the Young Executives Network and the Hot Rod Industry Alliance, and he is the SEMA Board liaison for the MPMC. He has also been recognized by the Performance Warehouse Association (PWA) as its Person of the Year, and Auto Meter has been PWA Manufacturer of the Year four times during his tenure with the company.

“Jeep’s eighth term on the Board of Directors only scratches the surface of his involvement,” said Ron Funfar of Hedman Hedders. “He has either served on or chaired nearly every SEMA committee—many more than once. He was a charter member of the World Motorsports Society and was influential in the formation of what is now SEMA News.

“It’s not often that a person’s name is synonymous with the company he works for, but when someone says ‘Auto Meter,’ the first thing that comes to mind is Jeep Worthan,” Funfar added. “Jeep’s love and passion for this industry are unparalleled. You will not find an individual more deserving than Jeep to be inducted into the SEMA Hall of Fame.”

Henry “Smokey” Yunick

There were really two Smokey Yunicks. The first was the stuff of legends.

Henry Yunick dropped out of school as a teenager to work on his family’s Pennsylvania farm after his father died. His nickname came from a track announcer commenting on the condition of his motorcycle during a 1941 race. He joined the Army Air Corps, flew bombers and fighters in World War II, and then returned from the war to open what was at first a tiny shop in Daytona Beach, Florida, “The Best Damn Garage in Town.”

It wasn’t just bluster. First in NASCAR, then at Indy, Yunick applied his prodigious mechanical talents to making fast cars and making cars go faster. The roster of men who drove for Yunick is a Who’s Who of racing champions, from Allison (Bobby) to Vukovich (Billy). He won two NASCAR Grand National Championships as a car owner and mechanic, and he won at Indy in 1960 as the co-chief mechanic for Jim Rathmann’s Offenhauser-powered roadster.

“Indy was his love,” said Jim McFarland, who was an editor at Hot Rod magazine when he began a 40-year friendship with Yunick in the ’60s. “He came out of NASCAR but gravitated to Indy since he wasn’t bound by all the rules. He could explore more things there. The technological challenges were something that intrigued him.”

Yunick’s speed secrets could be so ground-breaking—or difficult to discern—that some hung another nickname on him: cheater.

“I get offended when I hear that,” said Trish Yunick Brown, his daughter. “He maintained he didn’t cheat. What he did was innovation. As far as he was concerned, if it didn’t say what he was doing wasn’t allowed, then it was perfectly fair. Many things that weren’t in the rulebook on the weekend became rules on Monday morning, courtesy of Smokey.”

Yunick’s talents weren’t limited to the racetrack. Pontiac, Chevrolet and Ford were among the auto makers that benefited from either his hands-on engineering or consulting work. He is credited with developing, among other components, variable-ratio power steering, reverse-flow engine cooling and the extended-tip spark plug.

He was closely involved with the development of Chevy’s small-block V-8. According to McFarland, he “…pioneered a lot of thinking that builders of aftermarket parts picked up on. He came up with a cross-ram intake that Vic [Edelbrock] built later, did cylinder head work, pioneered things ostensibly for Chevrolet that wound up in various segments of the aftermarket.”

Racer safety was a big concern of Yunick’s as well. He stopped competing in NASCAR when the sanctioning body wouldn’t let him use a fuel bladder; and he designed a “safe wall” in the ’60s that would move on contact, absorbing some of a crash’s energy.

The Yunick of legend could be blunt, even ornery. “Cantankerous, that’s a good word for it,” Trish Yunick said. But then there are the stories about the other Smokey, the one who would open his garage in the middle of the night to help a fellow racer, even if he was a competitor. Or who, in his later years, found time for a family that had learned to live without him for long stretches, especially from late April to early June.

Trish told this story about her dad’s other side:

“Smokey and John DeLorean were friends. They worked at Pontiac at the same time. Smokey called John one morning, and John was going through his first very public divorce. They didn’t talk about the divorce, but Smokey knew he wasn’t in good shape. So he hung up the phone and flew to Detroit to check on him. They talked for a while, and Smokey felt better about John, so he flew home. John later said he was thinking about killing himself that night. Smokey did have a bad side, but he really was very human.”

SEMA NEWS -- August 2009
HALL of FAME 2009

By Drew Hardin

Bill Perry, Rolan “Jeep” Worthan and Henry “Smokey” Yunick Join SEMA’s Prestigious Hall of Fame

Bill Perry		Henry “Smokey” Yunick		Rolan “Jeep” Worthan

It seems like everyone gets a trophy these days. Our children’s sports teams don’t keep score anymore; everyone’s a winner just for showing up. The entertainment industry spends so much time staging awards and honors presentations, it’s a wonder that films, TV shows, music and theater still get produced.

Even in our own industry, it’s hard to keep track of all the “…of the Year” statuettes that are handed out in each and every automotive niche.

The net effect of all this is an overall dilution of an award’s true meaning. When everyone gets a trophy, does that trophy matter anymore?

Here, it does—very, very much. SEMA’s Hall of Fame award isn’t something you get just for showing up. It is the highest, most prestigious honor in the entire specialty-equipment industry—an industry that encompasses some 7,100 member companies that contribute more than $31 billion to the world economy.

SEMA’s Hall of Fame is almost as old as the association itself. Created in 1969, just six years after SEMA’s formation, the Hall of Fame award recognizes those members of the automotive aftermarket whose ingenuity, enthusiasm, integrity and old-fashioned hard work formed the industry’s very foundation and shaped its growth over the past four decades. Through their various contributions, these individuals have grown our industry from a small group of pioneering speed-part manufacturers to the wide-ranging economic powerhouse it is today.

The qualifications for Hall of Fame membership are rigorous. Nominees must have contributed to the industry on a national level and have been involved with the industry, or SEMA, for a minimum of 10 years. Their contributions must be seen as enhancing the technology, professionalism or general standing of the industry, and their activities must have been performed with a high degree of integrity. Involvement with or contributions to SEMA are important considerations in the nomination process, though the nominating committee has the discretion to honor a person who has significantly contributed to the automotive aftermarket without close ties to the association.

Each of this year’s Hall of Fame inductees made very different kinds of contributions to our industry, but one trait seems to unite them: a true, deep passion for their particular automotive calling—a passion that drove them to high levels of achievement in each of their fields. It’s an honor and a pleasure to welcome Bill Perry, Jeep Worthan and Smokey Yunick to SEMA’s Hall of Fame for 2009.

Bill Perry

Writing about Bill Perry after he lost his battle with leukemia earlier this year, SEMA Chairman Jim Cozzie and SEMA President and CEO Chris Kersting paid him one of the greatest compliments you can about another individual: “Simply put, Bill was one of the good guys.”

Everyone who knew and worked with Perry agreed. Joel Rosenthal, vice president of Gantt-Thomas & Associates, considered him a mentor and called it a “true blessing” to have worked with him. John Towle, PWA’s executive director, called Perry an “honest, forthright, compassionate and competitive individual” who was “dedicated to the industry and his family.” Bill Wagner, vice president of sales and marketing for Winfield Consumer Products, said Perry’s wife, Cathy, and his sons, Chris and Michael, “were the typical Southern family, and Bill was the southern gentleman. They couldn’t do enough for you.” And Ron DiVincenzo, general manager of Cap World, summed up what many felt when he called Perry “a great leader and a role model for us all.”

Like many in the automotive aftermarket industry, Perry had an early love for fast cars. He built radio-controlled cars as a kid and raced them at tracks in his hometown of Atlanta. He started working on real cars at age 14, and by the time Cathy met him when they were attending the University of West Georgia, “he had already done all the local dragstrips,” she said.

Perry’s experience as a racer led him to a job at a local speed shop while he attended college. In 1980, he became a manufacturer’s rep with Quality Parts Sales Inc., and he took a major step in his career when he bought the company just five years later and renamed it Bill Perry & Associates (BP&A). In the years to follow, Perry expanded his agency to the point where BP&A now has seven reps covering eight southeastern states.

Perry’s relationship with SEMA pre-dates the forming of BP&A. He joined SEMA in 1977 and became very active within the association. He served on the Board of Directors and was in his third consecutive term when he passed away. He was a member of the Board’s executive committee, and he served on the Manufacturers Rep Council (MRC) select committee for a number of years. Both he and BP&A have earned numerous awards and honors from SEMA, including the MRC Hall of Fame Award in 2008 and SEMA’s Manufacturers’ Representative of the Year award.

Perry’s enthusiasm for high performance never flagged. According to Cathy, he “…always loved cars, and always had a car he was working on, even when he started his business and raised his family.”

In fact, it was that enthusiasm that took Perry’s interactions with his customers to a higher level, said Rosenthal. “He was at his best at interpersonal relationships. When he was standing in a parking lot of a retail store, talking to a product’s end user, he was that enthusiast again. His face would light up when he was talking about that part, and the racer he was talking to just sensed it. That focus on enthusiasm had a great deal of influence on how he ran his business.”

Perry was also very generous with his time, Rosenthal said, no matter how big (or small) the customer was. “A lot of people would push back from having to talk to the ‘little guy’ who might not create a big sale. But even if he was talking to a guy who would just buy one piece, you still sensed Bill’s enthusiasm.”

Perry was a spiritual man, Rosenthal said, so when you were around him, “life lessons and business lessons often intermingled. Even in tough situations you’d see his spirituality play out in how he handled things. He was never ‘in your face.’ He was a gentleman’s gentleman.”

Rolan “Jeep” Worthan

Let’s start with the nickname. “That’s a question that’s been asked of me more times than I can count,” Jeep Worthan said with a laugh. “My mom gave it to me as a baby, though she claimed she could never remember why. Maybe it was because I looked like one when I crawled around on all fours. Or maybe it had something to do with my conception.” He paused. “That usually gets a chuckle.”

Currently the vice president of marketing/sales for Auto Meter Products Inc., Worthan was a Chicago-area racer and enthusiast before he knew there was an aftermarket parts industry. By chance, he spotted an ad in the Chicago Tribune classifieds for a job at Auto Meter while recuperating from knee surgery in early 1974. He joined the company that April, and he’s been there ever since.

“In the early ’70s, Auto Meter was truly unknown,” Worthan recalled. “Everyone, including me, was using a Sun tach and Stewart Warner gauges.”

Immediately Worthan went into sales, using his experience as a racer to introduce fellow racers to Auto Meter’s products.

“I always had a love of going fast; that was my advantage,” he explained. “I had a passion and cared for the racer—the customer—and I would bring his needs back to the factory so the engineering team could develop products that the racers would want to buy.”

That strategy launched what Worthan considers the most significant product in his Auto Meter career: the Monster Tach. In 1977, Worthan took a “tach tester,” which incorporated the new electric tach, to race tracks around the country. Ostensibly, the tester would help racers calibrate their own tachometers, but once they saw how responsive Auto Meter’s gauge was compared to their own, “they became new believers,” Worthan said. “That product really helped us penetrate into racing and got the ball rolling.”

Worthan brought that same level of enthusiasm to SEMA after he experienced his first SEMA Show with Auto Meter.

“Up to then, my experience had been as a user of performance products, and suddenly here I was on the other side of the fence,” he said. “I immediately fell in love with the industry.”

It wasn’t long before he made friends in the association, one of whom was a member of the Board of Directors.

“He told me how much he enjoyed it and that I’d be perfect for it. So in the early ’80s I got on the board, and I’ve been heavily involved ever since.”

To date, Worthan has served eight terms on SEMA’s Board of Directors. “Eight and counting,” he said. “I’m running again.” He has also been involved with a number of SEMA’s councils and had a hand in the formation of the Motorsports Parts Manufacturers Council (MPMC). He’s currently an active member of MPMC, the Young Executives Network and the Hot Rod Industry Alliance, and he is the SEMA Board liaison for the MPMC. He has also been recognized by the Performance Warehouse Association (PWA) as its Person of the Year, and Auto Meter has been PWA Manufacturer of the Year four times during his tenure with the company.

“Jeep’s eighth term on the Board of Directors only scratches the surface of his involvement,” said Ron Funfar of Hedman Hedders. “He has either served on or chaired nearly every SEMA committee—many more than once. He was a charter member of the World Motorsports Society and was influential in the formation of what is now SEMA News.

“It’s not often that a person’s name is synonymous with the company he works for, but when someone says ‘Auto Meter,’ the first thing that comes to mind is Jeep Worthan,” Funfar added. “Jeep’s love and passion for this industry are unparalleled. You will not find an individual more deserving than Jeep to be inducted into the SEMA Hall of Fame.”

Henry “Smokey” Yunick

There were really two Smokey Yunicks. The first was the stuff of legends.

Henry Yunick dropped out of school as a teenager to work on his family’s Pennsylvania farm after his father died. His nickname came from a track announcer commenting on the condition of his motorcycle during a 1941 race. He joined the Army Air Corps, flew bombers and fighters in World War II, and then returned from the war to open what was at first a tiny shop in Daytona Beach, Florida, “The Best Damn Garage in Town.”

It wasn’t just bluster. First in NASCAR, then at Indy, Yunick applied his prodigious mechanical talents to making fast cars and making cars go faster. The roster of men who drove for Yunick is a Who’s Who of racing champions, from Allison (Bobby) to Vukovich (Billy). He won two NASCAR Grand National Championships as a car owner and mechanic, and he won at Indy in 1960 as the co-chief mechanic for Jim Rathmann’s Offenhauser-powered roadster.

“Indy was his love,” said Jim McFarland, who was an editor at Hot Rod magazine when he began a 40-year friendship with Yunick in the ’60s. “He came out of NASCAR but gravitated to Indy since he wasn’t bound by all the rules. He could explore more things there. The technological challenges were something that intrigued him.”

Yunick’s speed secrets could be so ground-breaking—or difficult to discern—that some hung another nickname on him: cheater.

“I get offended when I hear that,” said Trish Yunick Brown, his daughter. “He maintained he didn’t cheat. What he did was innovation. As far as he was concerned, if it didn’t say what he was doing wasn’t allowed, then it was perfectly fair. Many things that weren’t in the rulebook on the weekend became rules on Monday morning, courtesy of Smokey.”

Yunick’s talents weren’t limited to the racetrack. Pontiac, Chevrolet and Ford were among the auto makers that benefited from either his hands-on engineering or consulting work. He is credited with developing, among other components, variable-ratio power steering, reverse-flow engine cooling and the extended-tip spark plug.

He was closely involved with the development of Chevy’s small-block V-8. According to McFarland, he “…pioneered a lot of thinking that builders of aftermarket parts picked up on. He came up with a cross-ram intake that Vic [Edelbrock] built later, did cylinder head work, pioneered things ostensibly for Chevrolet that wound up in various segments of the aftermarket.”

Racer safety was a big concern of Yunick’s as well. He stopped competing in NASCAR when the sanctioning body wouldn’t let him use a fuel bladder; and he designed a “safe wall” in the ’60s that would move on contact, absorbing some of a crash’s energy.

The Yunick of legend could be blunt, even ornery. “Cantankerous, that’s a good word for it,” Trish Yunick said. But then there are the stories about the other Smokey, the one who would open his garage in the middle of the night to help a fellow racer, even if he was a competitor. Or who, in his later years, found time for a family that had learned to live without him for long stretches, especially from late April to early June.

Trish told this story about her dad’s other side:

“Smokey and John DeLorean were friends. They worked at Pontiac at the same time. Smokey called John one morning, and John was going through his first very public divorce. They didn’t talk about the divorce, but Smokey knew he wasn’t in good shape. So he hung up the phone and flew to Detroit to check on him. They talked for a while, and Smokey felt better about John, so he flew home. John later said he was thinking about killing himself that night. Smokey did have a bad side, but he really was very human.”

SEMA NEWS -- August 2009
HALL of FAME 2009

By Drew Hardin

Bill Perry, Rolan “Jeep” Worthan and Henry “Smokey” Yunick Join SEMA’s Prestigious Hall of Fame

Bill Perry		Henry “Smokey” Yunick		Rolan “Jeep” Worthan

It seems like everyone gets a trophy these days. Our children’s sports teams don’t keep score anymore; everyone’s a winner just for showing up. The entertainment industry spends so much time staging awards and honors presentations, it’s a wonder that films, TV shows, music and theater still get produced.

Even in our own industry, it’s hard to keep track of all the “…of the Year” statuettes that are handed out in each and every automotive niche.

The net effect of all this is an overall dilution of an award’s true meaning. When everyone gets a trophy, does that trophy matter anymore?

Here, it does—very, very much. SEMA’s Hall of Fame award isn’t something you get just for showing up. It is the highest, most prestigious honor in the entire specialty-equipment industry—an industry that encompasses some 7,100 member companies that contribute more than $31 billion to the world economy.

SEMA’s Hall of Fame is almost as old as the association itself. Created in 1969, just six years after SEMA’s formation, the Hall of Fame award recognizes those members of the automotive aftermarket whose ingenuity, enthusiasm, integrity and old-fashioned hard work formed the industry’s very foundation and shaped its growth over the past four decades. Through their various contributions, these individuals have grown our industry from a small group of pioneering speed-part manufacturers to the wide-ranging economic powerhouse it is today.

The qualifications for Hall of Fame membership are rigorous. Nominees must have contributed to the industry on a national level and have been involved with the industry, or SEMA, for a minimum of 10 years. Their contributions must be seen as enhancing the technology, professionalism or general standing of the industry, and their activities must have been performed with a high degree of integrity. Involvement with or contributions to SEMA are important considerations in the nomination process, though the nominating committee has the discretion to honor a person who has significantly contributed to the automotive aftermarket without close ties to the association.

Each of this year’s Hall of Fame inductees made very different kinds of contributions to our industry, but one trait seems to unite them: a true, deep passion for their particular automotive calling—a passion that drove them to high levels of achievement in each of their fields. It’s an honor and a pleasure to welcome Bill Perry, Jeep Worthan and Smokey Yunick to SEMA’s Hall of Fame for 2009.

Bill Perry

Writing about Bill Perry after he lost his battle with leukemia earlier this year, SEMA Chairman Jim Cozzie and SEMA President and CEO Chris Kersting paid him one of the greatest compliments you can about another individual: “Simply put, Bill was one of the good guys.”

Everyone who knew and worked with Perry agreed. Joel Rosenthal, vice president of Gantt-Thomas & Associates, considered him a mentor and called it a “true blessing” to have worked with him. John Towle, PWA’s executive director, called Perry an “honest, forthright, compassionate and competitive individual” who was “dedicated to the industry and his family.” Bill Wagner, vice president of sales and marketing for Winfield Consumer Products, said Perry’s wife, Cathy, and his sons, Chris and Michael, “were the typical Southern family, and Bill was the southern gentleman. They couldn’t do enough for you.” And Ron DiVincenzo, general manager of Cap World, summed up what many felt when he called Perry “a great leader and a role model for us all.”

Like many in the automotive aftermarket industry, Perry had an early love for fast cars. He built radio-controlled cars as a kid and raced them at tracks in his hometown of Atlanta. He started working on real cars at age 14, and by the time Cathy met him when they were attending the University of West Georgia, “he had already done all the local dragstrips,” she said.

Perry’s experience as a racer led him to a job at a local speed shop while he attended college. In 1980, he became a manufacturer’s rep with Quality Parts Sales Inc., and he took a major step in his career when he bought the company just five years later and renamed it Bill Perry & Associates (BP&A). In the years to follow, Perry expanded his agency to the point where BP&A now has seven reps covering eight southeastern states.

Perry’s relationship with SEMA pre-dates the forming of BP&A. He joined SEMA in 1977 and became very active within the association. He served on the Board of Directors and was in his third consecutive term when he passed away. He was a member of the Board’s executive committee, and he served on the Manufacturers Rep Council (MRC) select committee for a number of years. Both he and BP&A have earned numerous awards and honors from SEMA, including the MRC Hall of Fame Award in 2008 and SEMA’s Manufacturers’ Representative of the Year award.

Perry’s enthusiasm for high performance never flagged. According to Cathy, he “…always loved cars, and always had a car he was working on, even when he started his business and raised his family.”

In fact, it was that enthusiasm that took Perry’s interactions with his customers to a higher level, said Rosenthal. “He was at his best at interpersonal relationships. When he was standing in a parking lot of a retail store, talking to a product’s end user, he was that enthusiast again. His face would light up when he was talking about that part, and the racer he was talking to just sensed it. That focus on enthusiasm had a great deal of influence on how he ran his business.”

Perry was also very generous with his time, Rosenthal said, no matter how big (or small) the customer was. “A lot of people would push back from having to talk to the ‘little guy’ who might not create a big sale. But even if he was talking to a guy who would just buy one piece, you still sensed Bill’s enthusiasm.”

Perry was a spiritual man, Rosenthal said, so when you were around him, “life lessons and business lessons often intermingled. Even in tough situations you’d see his spirituality play out in how he handled things. He was never ‘in your face.’ He was a gentleman’s gentleman.”

Rolan “Jeep” Worthan

Let’s start with the nickname. “That’s a question that’s been asked of me more times than I can count,” Jeep Worthan said with a laugh. “My mom gave it to me as a baby, though she claimed she could never remember why. Maybe it was because I looked like one when I crawled around on all fours. Or maybe it had something to do with my conception.” He paused. “That usually gets a chuckle.”

Currently the vice president of marketing/sales for Auto Meter Products Inc., Worthan was a Chicago-area racer and enthusiast before he knew there was an aftermarket parts industry. By chance, he spotted an ad in the Chicago Tribune classifieds for a job at Auto Meter while recuperating from knee surgery in early 1974. He joined the company that April, and he’s been there ever since.

“In the early ’70s, Auto Meter was truly unknown,” Worthan recalled. “Everyone, including me, was using a Sun tach and Stewart Warner gauges.”

Immediately Worthan went into sales, using his experience as a racer to introduce fellow racers to Auto Meter’s products.

“I always had a love of going fast; that was my advantage,” he explained. “I had a passion and cared for the racer—the customer—and I would bring his needs back to the factory so the engineering team could develop products that the racers would want to buy.”

That strategy launched what Worthan considers the most significant product in his Auto Meter career: the Monster Tach. In 1977, Worthan took a “tach tester,” which incorporated the new electric tach, to race tracks around the country. Ostensibly, the tester would help racers calibrate their own tachometers, but once they saw how responsive Auto Meter’s gauge was compared to their own, “they became new believers,” Worthan said. “That product really helped us penetrate into racing and got the ball rolling.”

Worthan brought that same level of enthusiasm to SEMA after he experienced his first SEMA Show with Auto Meter.

“Up to then, my experience had been as a user of performance products, and suddenly here I was on the other side of the fence,” he said. “I immediately fell in love with the industry.”

It wasn’t long before he made friends in the association, one of whom was a member of the Board of Directors.

“He told me how much he enjoyed it and that I’d be perfect for it. So in the early ’80s I got on the board, and I’ve been heavily involved ever since.”

To date, Worthan has served eight terms on SEMA’s Board of Directors. “Eight and counting,” he said. “I’m running again.” He has also been involved with a number of SEMA’s councils and had a hand in the formation of the Motorsports Parts Manufacturers Council (MPMC). He’s currently an active member of MPMC, the Young Executives Network and the Hot Rod Industry Alliance, and he is the SEMA Board liaison for the MPMC. He has also been recognized by the Performance Warehouse Association (PWA) as its Person of the Year, and Auto Meter has been PWA Manufacturer of the Year four times during his tenure with the company.

“Jeep’s eighth term on the Board of Directors only scratches the surface of his involvement,” said Ron Funfar of Hedman Hedders. “He has either served on or chaired nearly every SEMA committee—many more than once. He was a charter member of the World Motorsports Society and was influential in the formation of what is now SEMA News.

“It’s not often that a person’s name is synonymous with the company he works for, but when someone says ‘Auto Meter,’ the first thing that comes to mind is Jeep Worthan,” Funfar added. “Jeep’s love and passion for this industry are unparalleled. You will not find an individual more deserving than Jeep to be inducted into the SEMA Hall of Fame.”

Henry “Smokey” Yunick

There were really two Smokey Yunicks. The first was the stuff of legends.

Henry Yunick dropped out of school as a teenager to work on his family’s Pennsylvania farm after his father died. His nickname came from a track announcer commenting on the condition of his motorcycle during a 1941 race. He joined the Army Air Corps, flew bombers and fighters in World War II, and then returned from the war to open what was at first a tiny shop in Daytona Beach, Florida, “The Best Damn Garage in Town.”

It wasn’t just bluster. First in NASCAR, then at Indy, Yunick applied his prodigious mechanical talents to making fast cars and making cars go faster. The roster of men who drove for Yunick is a Who’s Who of racing champions, from Allison (Bobby) to Vukovich (Billy). He won two NASCAR Grand National Championships as a car owner and mechanic, and he won at Indy in 1960 as the co-chief mechanic for Jim Rathmann’s Offenhauser-powered roadster.

“Indy was his love,” said Jim McFarland, who was an editor at Hot Rod magazine when he began a 40-year friendship with Yunick in the ’60s. “He came out of NASCAR but gravitated to Indy since he wasn’t bound by all the rules. He could explore more things there. The technological challenges were something that intrigued him.”

Yunick’s speed secrets could be so ground-breaking—or difficult to discern—that some hung another nickname on him: cheater.

“I get offended when I hear that,” said Trish Yunick Brown, his daughter. “He maintained he didn’t cheat. What he did was innovation. As far as he was concerned, if it didn’t say what he was doing wasn’t allowed, then it was perfectly fair. Many things that weren’t in the rulebook on the weekend became rules on Monday morning, courtesy of Smokey.”

Yunick’s talents weren’t limited to the racetrack. Pontiac, Chevrolet and Ford were among the auto makers that benefited from either his hands-on engineering or consulting work. He is credited with developing, among other components, variable-ratio power steering, reverse-flow engine cooling and the extended-tip spark plug.

He was closely involved with the development of Chevy’s small-block V-8. According to McFarland, he “…pioneered a lot of thinking that builders of aftermarket parts picked up on. He came up with a cross-ram intake that Vic [Edelbrock] built later, did cylinder head work, pioneered things ostensibly for Chevrolet that wound up in various segments of the aftermarket.”

Racer safety was a big concern of Yunick’s as well. He stopped competing in NASCAR when the sanctioning body wouldn’t let him use a fuel bladder; and he designed a “safe wall” in the ’60s that would move on contact, absorbing some of a crash’s energy.

The Yunick of legend could be blunt, even ornery. “Cantankerous, that’s a good word for it,” Trish Yunick said. But then there are the stories about the other Smokey, the one who would open his garage in the middle of the night to help a fellow racer, even if he was a competitor. Or who, in his later years, found time for a family that had learned to live without him for long stretches, especially from late April to early June.

Trish told this story about her dad’s other side:

“Smokey and John DeLorean were friends. They worked at Pontiac at the same time. Smokey called John one morning, and John was going through his first very public divorce. They didn’t talk about the divorce, but Smokey knew he wasn’t in good shape. So he hung up the phone and flew to Detroit to check on him. They talked for a while, and Smokey felt better about John, so he flew home. John later said he was thinking about killing himself that night. Smokey did have a bad side, but he really was very human.”

SEMA NEWS -- August 2009
HALL of FAME 2009

By Drew Hardin

Bill Perry, Rolan “Jeep” Worthan and Henry “Smokey” Yunick Join SEMA’s Prestigious Hall of Fame

Bill Perry		Henry “Smokey” Yunick		Rolan “Jeep” Worthan

It seems like everyone gets a trophy these days. Our children’s sports teams don’t keep score anymore; everyone’s a winner just for showing up. The entertainment industry spends so much time staging awards and honors presentations, it’s a wonder that films, TV shows, music and theater still get produced.

Even in our own industry, it’s hard to keep track of all the “…of the Year” statuettes that are handed out in each and every automotive niche.

The net effect of all this is an overall dilution of an award’s true meaning. When everyone gets a trophy, does that trophy matter anymore?

Here, it does—very, very much. SEMA’s Hall of Fame award isn’t something you get just for showing up. It is the highest, most prestigious honor in the entire specialty-equipment industry—an industry that encompasses some 7,100 member companies that contribute more than $31 billion to the world economy.

SEMA’s Hall of Fame is almost as old as the association itself. Created in 1969, just six years after SEMA’s formation, the Hall of Fame award recognizes those members of the automotive aftermarket whose ingenuity, enthusiasm, integrity and old-fashioned hard work formed the industry’s very foundation and shaped its growth over the past four decades. Through their various contributions, these individuals have grown our industry from a small group of pioneering speed-part manufacturers to the wide-ranging economic powerhouse it is today.

The qualifications for Hall of Fame membership are rigorous. Nominees must have contributed to the industry on a national level and have been involved with the industry, or SEMA, for a minimum of 10 years. Their contributions must be seen as enhancing the technology, professionalism or general standing of the industry, and their activities must have been performed with a high degree of integrity. Involvement with or contributions to SEMA are important considerations in the nomination process, though the nominating committee has the discretion to honor a person who has significantly contributed to the automotive aftermarket without close ties to the association.

Each of this year’s Hall of Fame inductees made very different kinds of contributions to our industry, but one trait seems to unite them: a true, deep passion for their particular automotive calling—a passion that drove them to high levels of achievement in each of their fields. It’s an honor and a pleasure to welcome Bill Perry, Jeep Worthan and Smokey Yunick to SEMA’s Hall of Fame for 2009.

Bill Perry

Writing about Bill Perry after he lost his battle with leukemia earlier this year, SEMA Chairman Jim Cozzie and SEMA President and CEO Chris Kersting paid him one of the greatest compliments you can about another individual: “Simply put, Bill was one of the good guys.”

Everyone who knew and worked with Perry agreed. Joel Rosenthal, vice president of Gantt-Thomas & Associates, considered him a mentor and called it a “true blessing” to have worked with him. John Towle, PWA’s executive director, called Perry an “honest, forthright, compassionate and competitive individual” who was “dedicated to the industry and his family.” Bill Wagner, vice president of sales and marketing for Winfield Consumer Products, said Perry’s wife, Cathy, and his sons, Chris and Michael, “were the typical Southern family, and Bill was the southern gentleman. They couldn’t do enough for you.” And Ron DiVincenzo, general manager of Cap World, summed up what many felt when he called Perry “a great leader and a role model for us all.”

Like many in the automotive aftermarket industry, Perry had an early love for fast cars. He built radio-controlled cars as a kid and raced them at tracks in his hometown of Atlanta. He started working on real cars at age 14, and by the time Cathy met him when they were attending the University of West Georgia, “he had already done all the local dragstrips,” she said.

Perry’s experience as a racer led him to a job at a local speed shop while he attended college. In 1980, he became a manufacturer’s rep with Quality Parts Sales Inc., and he took a major step in his career when he bought the company just five years later and renamed it Bill Perry & Associates (BP&A). In the years to follow, Perry expanded his agency to the point where BP&A now has seven reps covering eight southeastern states.

Perry’s relationship with SEMA pre-dates the forming of BP&A. He joined SEMA in 1977 and became very active within the association. He served on the Board of Directors and was in his third consecutive term when he passed away. He was a member of the Board’s executive committee, and he served on the Manufacturers Rep Council (MRC) select committee for a number of years. Both he and BP&A have earned numerous awards and honors from SEMA, including the MRC Hall of Fame Award in 2008 and SEMA’s Manufacturers’ Representative of the Year award.

Perry’s enthusiasm for high performance never flagged. According to Cathy, he “…always loved cars, and always had a car he was working on, even when he started his business and raised his family.”

In fact, it was that enthusiasm that took Perry’s interactions with his customers to a higher level, said Rosenthal. “He was at his best at interpersonal relationships. When he was standing in a parking lot of a retail store, talking to a product’s end user, he was that enthusiast again. His face would light up when he was talking about that part, and the racer he was talking to just sensed it. That focus on enthusiasm had a great deal of influence on how he ran his business.”

Perry was also very generous with his time, Rosenthal said, no matter how big (or small) the customer was. “A lot of people would push back from having to talk to the ‘little guy’ who might not create a big sale. But even if he was talking to a guy who would just buy one piece, you still sensed Bill’s enthusiasm.”

Perry was a spiritual man, Rosenthal said, so when you were around him, “life lessons and business lessons often intermingled. Even in tough situations you’d see his spirituality play out in how he handled things. He was never ‘in your face.’ He was a gentleman’s gentleman.”

Rolan “Jeep” Worthan

Let’s start with the nickname. “That’s a question that’s been asked of me more times than I can count,” Jeep Worthan said with a laugh. “My mom gave it to me as a baby, though she claimed she could never remember why. Maybe it was because I looked like one when I crawled around on all fours. Or maybe it had something to do with my conception.” He paused. “That usually gets a chuckle.”

Currently the vice president of marketing/sales for Auto Meter Products Inc., Worthan was a Chicago-area racer and enthusiast before he knew there was an aftermarket parts industry. By chance, he spotted an ad in the Chicago Tribune classifieds for a job at Auto Meter while recuperating from knee surgery in early 1974. He joined the company that April, and he’s been there ever since.

“In the early ’70s, Auto Meter was truly unknown,” Worthan recalled. “Everyone, including me, was using a Sun tach and Stewart Warner gauges.”

Immediately Worthan went into sales, using his experience as a racer to introduce fellow racers to Auto Meter’s products.

“I always had a love of going fast; that was my advantage,” he explained. “I had a passion and cared for the racer—the customer—and I would bring his needs back to the factory so the engineering team could develop products that the racers would want to buy.”

That strategy launched what Worthan considers the most significant product in his Auto Meter career: the Monster Tach. In 1977, Worthan took a “tach tester,” which incorporated the new electric tach, to race tracks around the country. Ostensibly, the tester would help racers calibrate their own tachometers, but once they saw how responsive Auto Meter’s gauge was compared to their own, “they became new believers,” Worthan said. “That product really helped us penetrate into racing and got the ball rolling.”

Worthan brought that same level of enthusiasm to SEMA after he experienced his first SEMA Show with Auto Meter.

“Up to then, my experience had been as a user of performance products, and suddenly here I was on the other side of the fence,” he said. “I immediately fell in love with the industry.”

It wasn’t long before he made friends in the association, one of whom was a member of the Board of Directors.

“He told me how much he enjoyed it and that I’d be perfect for it. So in the early ’80s I got on the board, and I’ve been heavily involved ever since.”

To date, Worthan has served eight terms on SEMA’s Board of Directors. “Eight and counting,” he said. “I’m running again.” He has also been involved with a number of SEMA’s councils and had a hand in the formation of the Motorsports Parts Manufacturers Council (MPMC). He’s currently an active member of MPMC, the Young Executives Network and the Hot Rod Industry Alliance, and he is the SEMA Board liaison for the MPMC. He has also been recognized by the Performance Warehouse Association (PWA) as its Person of the Year, and Auto Meter has been PWA Manufacturer of the Year four times during his tenure with the company.

“Jeep’s eighth term on the Board of Directors only scratches the surface of his involvement,” said Ron Funfar of Hedman Hedders. “He has either served on or chaired nearly every SEMA committee—many more than once. He was a charter member of the World Motorsports Society and was influential in the formation of what is now SEMA News.

“It’s not often that a person’s name is synonymous with the company he works for, but when someone says ‘Auto Meter,’ the first thing that comes to mind is Jeep Worthan,” Funfar added. “Jeep’s love and passion for this industry are unparalleled. You will not find an individual more deserving than Jeep to be inducted into the SEMA Hall of Fame.”

Henry “Smokey” Yunick

There were really two Smokey Yunicks. The first was the stuff of legends.

Henry Yunick dropped out of school as a teenager to work on his family’s Pennsylvania farm after his father died. His nickname came from a track announcer commenting on the condition of his motorcycle during a 1941 race. He joined the Army Air Corps, flew bombers and fighters in World War II, and then returned from the war to open what was at first a tiny shop in Daytona Beach, Florida, “The Best Damn Garage in Town.”

It wasn’t just bluster. First in NASCAR, then at Indy, Yunick applied his prodigious mechanical talents to making fast cars and making cars go faster. The roster of men who drove for Yunick is a Who’s Who of racing champions, from Allison (Bobby) to Vukovich (Billy). He won two NASCAR Grand National Championships as a car owner and mechanic, and he won at Indy in 1960 as the co-chief mechanic for Jim Rathmann’s Offenhauser-powered roadster.

“Indy was his love,” said Jim McFarland, who was an editor at Hot Rod magazine when he began a 40-year friendship with Yunick in the ’60s. “He came out of NASCAR but gravitated to Indy since he wasn’t bound by all the rules. He could explore more things there. The technological challenges were something that intrigued him.”

Yunick’s speed secrets could be so ground-breaking—or difficult to discern—that some hung another nickname on him: cheater.

“I get offended when I hear that,” said Trish Yunick Brown, his daughter. “He maintained he didn’t cheat. What he did was innovation. As far as he was concerned, if it didn’t say what he was doing wasn’t allowed, then it was perfectly fair. Many things that weren’t in the rulebook on the weekend became rules on Monday morning, courtesy of Smokey.”

Yunick’s talents weren’t limited to the racetrack. Pontiac, Chevrolet and Ford were among the auto makers that benefited from either his hands-on engineering or consulting work. He is credited with developing, among other components, variable-ratio power steering, reverse-flow engine cooling and the extended-tip spark plug.

He was closely involved with the development of Chevy’s small-block V-8. According to McFarland, he “…pioneered a lot of thinking that builders of aftermarket parts picked up on. He came up with a cross-ram intake that Vic [Edelbrock] built later, did cylinder head work, pioneered things ostensibly for Chevrolet that wound up in various segments of the aftermarket.”

Racer safety was a big concern of Yunick’s as well. He stopped competing in NASCAR when the sanctioning body wouldn’t let him use a fuel bladder; and he designed a “safe wall” in the ’60s that would move on contact, absorbing some of a crash’s energy.

The Yunick of legend could be blunt, even ornery. “Cantankerous, that’s a good word for it,” Trish Yunick said. But then there are the stories about the other Smokey, the one who would open his garage in the middle of the night to help a fellow racer, even if he was a competitor. Or who, in his later years, found time for a family that had learned to live without him for long stretches, especially from late April to early June.

Trish told this story about her dad’s other side:

“Smokey and John DeLorean were friends. They worked at Pontiac at the same time. Smokey called John one morning, and John was going through his first very public divorce. They didn’t talk about the divorce, but Smokey knew he wasn’t in good shape. So he hung up the phone and flew to Detroit to check on him. They talked for a while, and Smokey felt better about John, so he flew home. John later said he was thinking about killing himself that night. Smokey did have a bad side, but he really was very human.”

SEMA News -- August 2009

By Zachary Krelle

Continuing America’s Love for the Automobile With Emerging Markets

	Dyed-in-the-wool enthusiasts, like the owners of these early Fords, have forged through the economic downturn to support their hobby.

In 2008, the restoration market held its ground and fended off economic troubles by sticking to its classic formulas. With the overall market shuddering in the wake of myriad disasters, enthusiasts looking to restore their automotive passion and collector cars came through decidedly.

What sets the restoration segment apart from others is the great appreciation for leaving cars alone—a stance some see as opposing various tenets of the specialty-equipment industry. While this is not entirely true, the purpose of this market is to return the majority of the vehicle to its original state with parts manufacturers that have recreated retired designs. The restoration market has survived by servicing vehicles that fall primarily under four principal categories:

• Early antiques (pre-1920s)
• Domestic pre-war brands from the 1920s to World War II
• Domestic post-war brands
• Imported Vehicles

Today, with almost 250 million cars and trucks registered on the roads in the United States and the retirement rate (the number of cars taken off the road by collisions, submissions to government agencies or removed from registration) not nearly keeping pace with the creation rate, the complete vehicle pool swells each year. At least, it did until 2008. Most people recognize the obvious nature of older cars becoming scarcer since they are no longer being produced; aside from reproductions and replicas, they continue to diminish in quantity. However, with each new year comes a year’s worth of new models, some of which will hit the heartstrings of future enthusiasts. Dennis Gage, collectibles ambassador and host of the “My Classic Car” television program, sees the opportunities: “While the cars get older, there are actually more of them out there every year. Cars that historically nobody cared about or were considered too far gone to restore are being brought back to life.”

Traditionally, the market has focused on high-volume models but is now venturing into more obscure steel and even new genres. The rolling rate now envelops newer cars, with some experts even considering the restoration of vehicles into the mid ’80s. If we expand to this perspective, there are over 7.5 million vehicles within the 1967 to 1985 range roaming the streets, breaking down and needing repairs.

Continuing along these lines, some states have higher proportions of these more modern older cars in their fleets compared to their total population. For example, California has the largest number of registered vehicles on the road, yet the state has a small percent of older cars currently registered. This is not a direct reflection of the complete number of classic cars and trucks in the state, but the number eligible for registration is lower and doesn’t include cars that are for off-road use only, fail smog inspections, etc.

Market Health

	Market Share: Appearance and accessory sales have grown consistently for over a decade, but the sharpest increase in 2008 came from performance and drivetrain parts.

For the first time in more than 15 years, the restoration market did not grow during 2008. It did, however, hold its own and weathered the economic storm, coming in just 2.4% lower than during the previous year. Considering how other segments have performed within the industry and how other non-automotive industries have fared, the enthusiast-driven restoration market has proven its resiliency.

With an accumulated total of $1.451 billion in retail sales for 2008, the restoration market achieved the second highest effort in history. Jim Barber, president of Classic Automotive Restoration Specialists and council chairman of SEMA’s Automotive Restoration Market Organization (ARMO), found a positive view of the situation: “Call volume is down from 12 months ago; however, the quality jobs are still coming. We have eaten into our backlog to a certain degree. The slowdown has given my staff time to focus on cost-saving measures and better customer communication.”

Ernie Silvers, Egge Machine and Speed Shop CEO and ARMO Person of the Year, saw the atmosphere differently: “During the first few weeks of November, folks stopped buying. Period. When buying started up again, we noticed folks were working very creatively to cut corners by reusing components that are normally replaced and/or not replacing all components of their engines.”

For a market of products that are arguably not necessities, resorting back to idle projects is not bad. The projects have not dried up, and the opportunities to engage new and existing customers remain. Gage put the market into perspective: “I actually haven’t seen much change in the past 12 months. Most restoration suppliers were coming off a record year when we entered the economic downturn. While this year’s business has been flat to down, it is still very solid, and although no one is dancing on air because of this, there is also not the grim hand wringing that pervades other segments of the automotive aftermarket.”

Some of these other segments—namely the light-truck market—depend heavily on new customers and, largely, non-endemic customers. Being fickle and un-invested in the hobby leads them to ditch the market quickly. Restoration and collector-vehicle consumers, on the other hand, are less capricious and have more market loyalty—a deeper resolve to continue the hobby even if that means temporary concessions.

For those reasons, the restoration niche picked up market share in comparison with the rest of the industry. Some segments receded, while the restoration market remained fairly flat. Nevertheless, some question whether the restoration segment will endure much longer.

“This is the magic question without a plausible answer,” Silvers said. “The industry has been dying for the last 13 years, according to my peers. I find this interesting, because our business has grown each of those 13 years prior to the current economic meltdown. Go figure.”

Re-Restoring Opportunities

Times are certainly less than ideal, but opportunities exist, and companies can use the crisis to realign with their audience. Calling on old customers, reaching out to new ones and reestablishing a strong customer-service ethic will build sales and customer loyalty—something beneficial when economic conditions force people to make difficult financial decisions.

Barber highlighted an oft-missed opportunity: “I believe hobbyists are always looking for the next collectible and continue to scour the market for cars needing restoration. One thing I believe everyone misses is re-restoration. We do a number of cars that were ‘restored’ years ago. They are sold, and a new owner wants to take the car to the next level. I see this fairly often, and yet no one discusses it.”

Over the course of the past decade, owners of restored vehicles have increased their spending on appearance parts and accessories, mainly to update their vehicles’ image. During 2008, however, there was an uptick in spending for performance and drivetrain parts. Suspension components, wheels and tires remained uniform.

Industry Voice: The Next Collectibles

	Annual sales: For the first time in recent history the Restoration market contracted during 2008; a modest change compared to other economic measurements and a tell-tale sign of the segment’s resiliency.

Barber noted his top picks: “We are seeing a surge in second-generation Camaros and Firebirds—especially Trans Ams. I believe the obvious are the ZR-1 Corvette as well as the Buick Grand National; however, I think some of the sleepers will be the WS-6 Trans Ams, anniversary Camaros and several sport trucks such as the [GMC] Cyclone and Typhoon, not to mention the special-edition trucks such as the Chevy SS and the Harley and Lightning-series Fords. The Monte Carlo Super Sport of the mid-’80s seems to be holding fairly steady and is poised to climb.”

Gage sees the once-neglected marques as hidden gems: “The aftermarket now makes it possible to do restorations that simply weren’t possible 15 or 20 years ago, and the prices that these cars are fetching make it a worthwhile proposition. There is also a greater appreciation for cars that weren’t necessarily all that popular in their time, such as four-doors and lower-end models like Biscaynes, Satellites and Falcons. There are more cars in play in the hobby than there ever have been, and these numbers will actually continue to increase for the foreseeable future.”

Looking down the road, Gage expanded to late-model possibilities: “Definitely cars of the ‘70s and ‘80s. There are even cars of the ‘90s that are developing a cult following. The Japanese collector-car trend hasn’t really caught fire yet, but it will. I think performance sedans like the Taurus SHO and the full-body Impala SS will continue to increase in popularity. Also, performance luxury cars like the Lincoln Mark VII are already collectible.”

Emerging Markets: Early Japanese

	Obscure domestic brands and vintage imports have created opportunities for enthusiasts to venture into new territories and for specialty equipment companies to support new markets.

Some see the emerging classic Japanese-vehicle market as another front for market potential. For the past decade—much longer in some cases—small gatherings of enthusiasts met to display the latest trends in vintage Japanese car and truck markets. Events like the Japanese Classic Car Show and make-specific meetings such as the Toyota Owners and Restorers Club’s Toyotafest and Motorsport Auto’s Z Car West Coast Nationals have provided owners the rare opportunity to showcase their hobby. Each year, the shows and product support grow larger.

“This is already taking place,” Barber said. “At this year’s ARMO New Product Showcase held in April at Spring Carlisle, we had ARMO member companies display new products for Japanese vehicles.”

Ben Hsu, co-owner and editor of Japanese Nostalgic Car, the first major domestic publication covering the market, sees the interest firsthand. Hsu commented on the growth of his magazine’s print and web-based products.

“Online membership is up 175%,” he said. “Since last April, we have seen a 292% increase in magazine subscriptions. The economy seems to have affected our ad sales more than our subscriptions.”

He also highlighted the opportunities: “Roughly 90% of our readers like to hot rod or restomod their cars, but the retro look is very important, so you might see engine swaps with modern cars but not the extreme body/interior modifications often associated with import/compact tuners. The remaining purists are perhaps the most dedicated and will go through great lengths to find new old stock (NOS) parts.”

Between youthful nostalgia and the curiosity for automotive history, the owners of these vehicles display similar profiles compared with traditional ones. Hsu noted that these owners are “…the post-boomer generation that grew up after the 1973 oil crisis and drove Datsuns, Toyotas and Mazdas as their first cars. A subset of tuners who were into the import/drifting scene that are genuinely interested in the heritage of their preferred marques.”

The difference, however, is the widely accepted notions of value. The biggest challenge is that most people still don’t consider vintage Japanese cars collectible or worthy of restoring. Many simply junk perfectly good examples, so their numbers decrease every year. Manufacturers may find that the interest doesn’t match that of, say, musclecars yet, and even the U.S. branches of the OEMs don’t do much to recognize their heritage.

By addressing emerging markets, manufacturers, retailers and service providers can strengthen the popularity of the entire industry. Younger generations of enthusiasts are joining the ranks and helping to keep the passion for collectible vehicles alive. They help pass along the restoration bug to newer generations and demographics.

As a final note, Silvers remarked on the classic restoration market, but his sentiments were just as true in both the new trends in classic domestic and foreign niches.

“Egge Machine Company will continue to encourage folks to ‘drive the wheels off them’ and enjoy themselves,” Silvers said. “And we’ll keep making the internal engine components so the engines can be rebuilt. As we have for the last 94 years, we’ll continue to do our part to help perpetuate America’s love for the automobile.”

SEMA News -- August 2009

By Zachary Krelle

Continuing America’s Love for the Automobile With Emerging Markets

	Dyed-in-the-wool enthusiasts, like the owners of these early Fords, have forged through the economic downturn to support their hobby.

In 2008, the restoration market held its ground and fended off economic troubles by sticking to its classic formulas. With the overall market shuddering in the wake of myriad disasters, enthusiasts looking to restore their automotive passion and collector cars came through decidedly.

What sets the restoration segment apart from others is the great appreciation for leaving cars alone—a stance some see as opposing various tenets of the specialty-equipment industry. While this is not entirely true, the purpose of this market is to return the majority of the vehicle to its original state with parts manufacturers that have recreated retired designs. The restoration market has survived by servicing vehicles that fall primarily under four principal categories:

• Early antiques (pre-1920s)
• Domestic pre-war brands from the 1920s to World War II
• Domestic post-war brands
• Imported Vehicles

Today, with almost 250 million cars and trucks registered on the roads in the United States and the retirement rate (the number of cars taken off the road by collisions, submissions to government agencies or removed from registration) not nearly keeping pace with the creation rate, the complete vehicle pool swells each year. At least, it did until 2008. Most people recognize the obvious nature of older cars becoming scarcer since they are no longer being produced; aside from reproductions and replicas, they continue to diminish in quantity. However, with each new year comes a year’s worth of new models, some of which will hit the heartstrings of future enthusiasts. Dennis Gage, collectibles ambassador and host of the “My Classic Car” television program, sees the opportunities: “While the cars get older, there are actually more of them out there every year. Cars that historically nobody cared about or were considered too far gone to restore are being brought back to life.”

Traditionally, the market has focused on high-volume models but is now venturing into more obscure steel and even new genres. The rolling rate now envelops newer cars, with some experts even considering the restoration of vehicles into the mid ’80s. If we expand to this perspective, there are over 7.5 million vehicles within the 1967 to 1985 range roaming the streets, breaking down and needing repairs.

Continuing along these lines, some states have higher proportions of these more modern older cars in their fleets compared to their total population. For example, California has the largest number of registered vehicles on the road, yet the state has a small percent of older cars currently registered. This is not a direct reflection of the complete number of classic cars and trucks in the state, but the number eligible for registration is lower and doesn’t include cars that are for off-road use only, fail smog inspections, etc.

Market Health

	Market Share: Appearance and accessory sales have grown consistently for over a decade, but the sharpest increase in 2008 came from performance and drivetrain parts.

For the first time in more than 15 years, the restoration market did not grow during 2008. It did, however, hold its own and weathered the economic storm, coming in just 2.4% lower than during the previous year. Considering how other segments have performed within the industry and how other non-automotive industries have fared, the enthusiast-driven restoration market has proven its resiliency.

With an accumulated total of $1.451 billion in retail sales for 2008, the restoration market achieved the second highest effort in history. Jim Barber, president of Classic Automotive Restoration Specialists and council chairman of SEMA’s Automotive Restoration Market Organization (ARMO), found a positive view of the situation: “Call volume is down from 12 months ago; however, the quality jobs are still coming. We have eaten into our backlog to a certain degree. The slowdown has given my staff time to focus on cost-saving measures and better customer communication.”

Ernie Silvers, Egge Machine and Speed Shop CEO and ARMO Person of the Year, saw the atmosphere differently: “During the first few weeks of November, folks stopped buying. Period. When buying started up again, we noticed folks were working very creatively to cut corners by reusing components that are normally replaced and/or not replacing all components of their engines.”

For a market of products that are arguably not necessities, resorting back to idle projects is not bad. The projects have not dried up, and the opportunities to engage new and existing customers remain. Gage put the market into perspective: “I actually haven’t seen much change in the past 12 months. Most restoration suppliers were coming off a record year when we entered the economic downturn. While this year’s business has been flat to down, it is still very solid, and although no one is dancing on air because of this, there is also not the grim hand wringing that pervades other segments of the automotive aftermarket.”

Some of these other segments—namely the light-truck market—depend heavily on new customers and, largely, non-endemic customers. Being fickle and un-invested in the hobby leads them to ditch the market quickly. Restoration and collector-vehicle consumers, on the other hand, are less capricious and have more market loyalty—a deeper resolve to continue the hobby even if that means temporary concessions.

For those reasons, the restoration niche picked up market share in comparison with the rest of the industry. Some segments receded, while the restoration market remained fairly flat. Nevertheless, some question whether the restoration segment will endure much longer.

“This is the magic question without a plausible answer,” Silvers said. “The industry has been dying for the last 13 years, according to my peers. I find this interesting, because our business has grown each of those 13 years prior to the current economic meltdown. Go figure.”

Re-Restoring Opportunities

Times are certainly less than ideal, but opportunities exist, and companies can use the crisis to realign with their audience. Calling on old customers, reaching out to new ones and reestablishing a strong customer-service ethic will build sales and customer loyalty—something beneficial when economic conditions force people to make difficult financial decisions.

Barber highlighted an oft-missed opportunity: “I believe hobbyists are always looking for the next collectible and continue to scour the market for cars needing restoration. One thing I believe everyone misses is re-restoration. We do a number of cars that were ‘restored’ years ago. They are sold, and a new owner wants to take the car to the next level. I see this fairly often, and yet no one discusses it.”

Over the course of the past decade, owners of restored vehicles have increased their spending on appearance parts and accessories, mainly to update their vehicles’ image. During 2008, however, there was an uptick in spending for performance and drivetrain parts. Suspension components, wheels and tires remained uniform.

Industry Voice: The Next Collectibles

	Annual sales: For the first time in recent history the Restoration market contracted during 2008; a modest change compared to other economic measurements and a tell-tale sign of the segment’s resiliency.

Barber noted his top picks: “We are seeing a surge in second-generation Camaros and Firebirds—especially Trans Ams. I believe the obvious are the ZR-1 Corvette as well as the Buick Grand National; however, I think some of the sleepers will be the WS-6 Trans Ams, anniversary Camaros and several sport trucks such as the [GMC] Cyclone and Typhoon, not to mention the special-edition trucks such as the Chevy SS and the Harley and Lightning-series Fords. The Monte Carlo Super Sport of the mid-’80s seems to be holding fairly steady and is poised to climb.”

Gage sees the once-neglected marques as hidden gems: “The aftermarket now makes it possible to do restorations that simply weren’t possible 15 or 20 years ago, and the prices that these cars are fetching make it a worthwhile proposition. There is also a greater appreciation for cars that weren’t necessarily all that popular in their time, such as four-doors and lower-end models like Biscaynes, Satellites and Falcons. There are more cars in play in the hobby than there ever have been, and these numbers will actually continue to increase for the foreseeable future.”

Looking down the road, Gage expanded to late-model possibilities: “Definitely cars of the ‘70s and ‘80s. There are even cars of the ‘90s that are developing a cult following. The Japanese collector-car trend hasn’t really caught fire yet, but it will. I think performance sedans like the Taurus SHO and the full-body Impala SS will continue to increase in popularity. Also, performance luxury cars like the Lincoln Mark VII are already collectible.”

Emerging Markets: Early Japanese

	Obscure domestic brands and vintage imports have created opportunities for enthusiasts to venture into new territories and for specialty equipment companies to support new markets.

Some see the emerging classic Japanese-vehicle market as another front for market potential. For the past decade—much longer in some cases—small gatherings of enthusiasts met to display the latest trends in vintage Japanese car and truck markets. Events like the Japanese Classic Car Show and make-specific meetings such as the Toyota Owners and Restorers Club’s Toyotafest and Motorsport Auto’s Z Car West Coast Nationals have provided owners the rare opportunity to showcase their hobby. Each year, the shows and product support grow larger.

“This is already taking place,” Barber said. “At this year’s ARMO New Product Showcase held in April at Spring Carlisle, we had ARMO member companies display new products for Japanese vehicles.”

Ben Hsu, co-owner and editor of Japanese Nostalgic Car, the first major domestic publication covering the market, sees the interest firsthand. Hsu commented on the growth of his magazine’s print and web-based products.

“Online membership is up 175%,” he said. “Since last April, we have seen a 292% increase in magazine subscriptions. The economy seems to have affected our ad sales more than our subscriptions.”

He also highlighted the opportunities: “Roughly 90% of our readers like to hot rod or restomod their cars, but the retro look is very important, so you might see engine swaps with modern cars but not the extreme body/interior modifications often associated with import/compact tuners. The remaining purists are perhaps the most dedicated and will go through great lengths to find new old stock (NOS) parts.”

Between youthful nostalgia and the curiosity for automotive history, the owners of these vehicles display similar profiles compared with traditional ones. Hsu noted that these owners are “…the post-boomer generation that grew up after the 1973 oil crisis and drove Datsuns, Toyotas and Mazdas as their first cars. A subset of tuners who were into the import/drifting scene that are genuinely interested in the heritage of their preferred marques.”

The difference, however, is the widely accepted notions of value. The biggest challenge is that most people still don’t consider vintage Japanese cars collectible or worthy of restoring. Many simply junk perfectly good examples, so their numbers decrease every year. Manufacturers may find that the interest doesn’t match that of, say, musclecars yet, and even the U.S. branches of the OEMs don’t do much to recognize their heritage.

By addressing emerging markets, manufacturers, retailers and service providers can strengthen the popularity of the entire industry. Younger generations of enthusiasts are joining the ranks and helping to keep the passion for collectible vehicles alive. They help pass along the restoration bug to newer generations and demographics.

As a final note, Silvers remarked on the classic restoration market, but his sentiments were just as true in both the new trends in classic domestic and foreign niches.

“Egge Machine Company will continue to encourage folks to ‘drive the wheels off them’ and enjoy themselves,” Silvers said. “And we’ll keep making the internal engine components so the engines can be rebuilt. As we have for the last 94 years, we’ll continue to do our part to help perpetuate America’s love for the automobile.”

SEMA News -- August 2009

By Zachary Krelle

Continuing America’s Love for the Automobile With Emerging Markets

	Dyed-in-the-wool enthusiasts, like the owners of these early Fords, have forged through the economic downturn to support their hobby.

In 2008, the restoration market held its ground and fended off economic troubles by sticking to its classic formulas. With the overall market shuddering in the wake of myriad disasters, enthusiasts looking to restore their automotive passion and collector cars came through decidedly.

What sets the restoration segment apart from others is the great appreciation for leaving cars alone—a stance some see as opposing various tenets of the specialty-equipment industry. While this is not entirely true, the purpose of this market is to return the majority of the vehicle to its original state with parts manufacturers that have recreated retired designs. The restoration market has survived by servicing vehicles that fall primarily under four principal categories:

• Early antiques (pre-1920s)
• Domestic pre-war brands from the 1920s to World War II
• Domestic post-war brands
• Imported Vehicles

Today, with almost 250 million cars and trucks registered on the roads in the United States and the retirement rate (the number of cars taken off the road by collisions, submissions to government agencies or removed from registration) not nearly keeping pace with the creation rate, the complete vehicle pool swells each year. At least, it did until 2008. Most people recognize the obvious nature of older cars becoming scarcer since they are no longer being produced; aside from reproductions and replicas, they continue to diminish in quantity. However, with each new year comes a year’s worth of new models, some of which will hit the heartstrings of future enthusiasts. Dennis Gage, collectibles ambassador and host of the “My Classic Car” television program, sees the opportunities: “While the cars get older, there are actually more of them out there every year. Cars that historically nobody cared about or were considered too far gone to restore are being brought back to life.”

Traditionally, the market has focused on high-volume models but is now venturing into more obscure steel and even new genres. The rolling rate now envelops newer cars, with some experts even considering the restoration of vehicles into the mid ’80s. If we expand to this perspective, there are over 7.5 million vehicles within the 1967 to 1985 range roaming the streets, breaking down and needing repairs.

Continuing along these lines, some states have higher proportions of these more modern older cars in their fleets compared to their total population. For example, California has the largest number of registered vehicles on the road, yet the state has a small percent of older cars currently registered. This is not a direct reflection of the complete number of classic cars and trucks in the state, but the number eligible for registration is lower and doesn’t include cars that are for off-road use only, fail smog inspections, etc.

Market Health

	Market Share: Appearance and accessory sales have grown consistently for over a decade, but the sharpest increase in 2008 came from performance and drivetrain parts.

For the first time in more than 15 years, the restoration market did not grow during 2008. It did, however, hold its own and weathered the economic storm, coming in just 2.4% lower than during the previous year. Considering how other segments have performed within the industry and how other non-automotive industries have fared, the enthusiast-driven restoration market has proven its resiliency.

With an accumulated total of $1.451 billion in retail sales for 2008, the restoration market achieved the second highest effort in history. Jim Barber, president of Classic Automotive Restoration Specialists and council chairman of SEMA’s Automotive Restoration Market Organization (ARMO), found a positive view of the situation: “Call volume is down from 12 months ago; however, the quality jobs are still coming. We have eaten into our backlog to a certain degree. The slowdown has given my staff time to focus on cost-saving measures and better customer communication.”

Ernie Silvers, Egge Machine and Speed Shop CEO and ARMO Person of the Year, saw the atmosphere differently: “During the first few weeks of November, folks stopped buying. Period. When buying started up again, we noticed folks were working very creatively to cut corners by reusing components that are normally replaced and/or not replacing all components of their engines.”

For a market of products that are arguably not necessities, resorting back to idle projects is not bad. The projects have not dried up, and the opportunities to engage new and existing customers remain. Gage put the market into perspective: “I actually haven’t seen much change in the past 12 months. Most restoration suppliers were coming off a record year when we entered the economic downturn. While this year’s business has been flat to down, it is still very solid, and although no one is dancing on air because of this, there is also not the grim hand wringing that pervades other segments of the automotive aftermarket.”

Some of these other segments—namely the light-truck market—depend heavily on new customers and, largely, non-endemic customers. Being fickle and un-invested in the hobby leads them to ditch the market quickly. Restoration and collector-vehicle consumers, on the other hand, are less capricious and have more market loyalty—a deeper resolve to continue the hobby even if that means temporary concessions.

For those reasons, the restoration niche picked up market share in comparison with the rest of the industry. Some segments receded, while the restoration market remained fairly flat. Nevertheless, some question whether the restoration segment will endure much longer.

“This is the magic question without a plausible answer,” Silvers said. “The industry has been dying for the last 13 years, according to my peers. I find this interesting, because our business has grown each of those 13 years prior to the current economic meltdown. Go figure.”

Re-Restoring Opportunities

Times are certainly less than ideal, but opportunities exist, and companies can use the crisis to realign with their audience. Calling on old customers, reaching out to new ones and reestablishing a strong customer-service ethic will build sales and customer loyalty—something beneficial when economic conditions force people to make difficult financial decisions.

Barber highlighted an oft-missed opportunity: “I believe hobbyists are always looking for the next collectible and continue to scour the market for cars needing restoration. One thing I believe everyone misses is re-restoration. We do a number of cars that were ‘restored’ years ago. They are sold, and a new owner wants to take the car to the next level. I see this fairly often, and yet no one discusses it.”

Over the course of the past decade, owners of restored vehicles have increased their spending on appearance parts and accessories, mainly to update their vehicles’ image. During 2008, however, there was an uptick in spending for performance and drivetrain parts. Suspension components, wheels and tires remained uniform.

Industry Voice: The Next Collectibles

	Annual sales: For the first time in recent history the Restoration market contracted during 2008; a modest change compared to other economic measurements and a tell-tale sign of the segment’s resiliency.

Barber noted his top picks: “We are seeing a surge in second-generation Camaros and Firebirds—especially Trans Ams. I believe the obvious are the ZR-1 Corvette as well as the Buick Grand National; however, I think some of the sleepers will be the WS-6 Trans Ams, anniversary Camaros and several sport trucks such as the [GMC] Cyclone and Typhoon, not to mention the special-edition trucks such as the Chevy SS and the Harley and Lightning-series Fords. The Monte Carlo Super Sport of the mid-’80s seems to be holding fairly steady and is poised to climb.”

Gage sees the once-neglected marques as hidden gems: “The aftermarket now makes it possible to do restorations that simply weren’t possible 15 or 20 years ago, and the prices that these cars are fetching make it a worthwhile proposition. There is also a greater appreciation for cars that weren’t necessarily all that popular in their time, such as four-doors and lower-end models like Biscaynes, Satellites and Falcons. There are more cars in play in the hobby than there ever have been, and these numbers will actually continue to increase for the foreseeable future.”

Looking down the road, Gage expanded to late-model possibilities: “Definitely cars of the ‘70s and ‘80s. There are even cars of the ‘90s that are developing a cult following. The Japanese collector-car trend hasn’t really caught fire yet, but it will. I think performance sedans like the Taurus SHO and the full-body Impala SS will continue to increase in popularity. Also, performance luxury cars like the Lincoln Mark VII are already collectible.”

Emerging Markets: Early Japanese

	Obscure domestic brands and vintage imports have created opportunities for enthusiasts to venture into new territories and for specialty equipment companies to support new markets.

Some see the emerging classic Japanese-vehicle market as another front for market potential. For the past decade—much longer in some cases—small gatherings of enthusiasts met to display the latest trends in vintage Japanese car and truck markets. Events like the Japanese Classic Car Show and make-specific meetings such as the Toyota Owners and Restorers Club’s Toyotafest and Motorsport Auto’s Z Car West Coast Nationals have provided owners the rare opportunity to showcase their hobby. Each year, the shows and product support grow larger.

“This is already taking place,” Barber said. “At this year’s ARMO New Product Showcase held in April at Spring Carlisle, we had ARMO member companies display new products for Japanese vehicles.”

Ben Hsu, co-owner and editor of Japanese Nostalgic Car, the first major domestic publication covering the market, sees the interest firsthand. Hsu commented on the growth of his magazine’s print and web-based products.

“Online membership is up 175%,” he said. “Since last April, we have seen a 292% increase in magazine subscriptions. The economy seems to have affected our ad sales more than our subscriptions.”

He also highlighted the opportunities: “Roughly 90% of our readers like to hot rod or restomod their cars, but the retro look is very important, so you might see engine swaps with modern cars but not the extreme body/interior modifications often associated with import/compact tuners. The remaining purists are perhaps the most dedicated and will go through great lengths to find new old stock (NOS) parts.”

Between youthful nostalgia and the curiosity for automotive history, the owners of these vehicles display similar profiles compared with traditional ones. Hsu noted that these owners are “…the post-boomer generation that grew up after the 1973 oil crisis and drove Datsuns, Toyotas and Mazdas as their first cars. A subset of tuners who were into the import/drifting scene that are genuinely interested in the heritage of their preferred marques.”

The difference, however, is the widely accepted notions of value. The biggest challenge is that most people still don’t consider vintage Japanese cars collectible or worthy of restoring. Many simply junk perfectly good examples, so their numbers decrease every year. Manufacturers may find that the interest doesn’t match that of, say, musclecars yet, and even the U.S. branches of the OEMs don’t do much to recognize their heritage.

By addressing emerging markets, manufacturers, retailers and service providers can strengthen the popularity of the entire industry. Younger generations of enthusiasts are joining the ranks and helping to keep the passion for collectible vehicles alive. They help pass along the restoration bug to newer generations and demographics.

As a final note, Silvers remarked on the classic restoration market, but his sentiments were just as true in both the new trends in classic domestic and foreign niches.

“Egge Machine Company will continue to encourage folks to ‘drive the wheels off them’ and enjoy themselves,” Silvers said. “And we’ll keep making the internal engine components so the engines can be rebuilt. As we have for the last 94 years, we’ll continue to do our part to help perpetuate America’s love for the automobile.”

SEMA News -- August 2009

By Zachary Krelle

Continuing America’s Love for the Automobile With Emerging Markets

	Dyed-in-the-wool enthusiasts, like the owners of these early Fords, have forged through the economic downturn to support their hobby.

In 2008, the restoration market held its ground and fended off economic troubles by sticking to its classic formulas. With the overall market shuddering in the wake of myriad disasters, enthusiasts looking to restore their automotive passion and collector cars came through decidedly.

What sets the restoration segment apart from others is the great appreciation for leaving cars alone—a stance some see as opposing various tenets of the specialty-equipment industry. While this is not entirely true, the purpose of this market is to return the majority of the vehicle to its original state with parts manufacturers that have recreated retired designs. The restoration market has survived by servicing vehicles that fall primarily under four principal categories:

• Early antiques (pre-1920s)
• Domestic pre-war brands from the 1920s to World War II
• Domestic post-war brands
• Imported Vehicles

Today, with almost 250 million cars and trucks registered on the roads in the United States and the retirement rate (the number of cars taken off the road by collisions, submissions to government agencies or removed from registration) not nearly keeping pace with the creation rate, the complete vehicle pool swells each year. At least, it did until 2008. Most people recognize the obvious nature of older cars becoming scarcer since they are no longer being produced; aside from reproductions and replicas, they continue to diminish in quantity. However, with each new year comes a year’s worth of new models, some of which will hit the heartstrings of future enthusiasts. Dennis Gage, collectibles ambassador and host of the “My Classic Car” television program, sees the opportunities: “While the cars get older, there are actually more of them out there every year. Cars that historically nobody cared about or were considered too far gone to restore are being brought back to life.”

Traditionally, the market has focused on high-volume models but is now venturing into more obscure steel and even new genres. The rolling rate now envelops newer cars, with some experts even considering the restoration of vehicles into the mid ’80s. If we expand to this perspective, there are over 7.5 million vehicles within the 1967 to 1985 range roaming the streets, breaking down and needing repairs.

Continuing along these lines, some states have higher proportions of these more modern older cars in their fleets compared to their total population. For example, California has the largest number of registered vehicles on the road, yet the state has a small percent of older cars currently registered. This is not a direct reflection of the complete number of classic cars and trucks in the state, but the number eligible for registration is lower and doesn’t include cars that are for off-road use only, fail smog inspections, etc.

Market Health

	Market Share: Appearance and accessory sales have grown consistently for over a decade, but the sharpest increase in 2008 came from performance and drivetrain parts.

For the first time in more than 15 years, the restoration market did not grow during 2008. It did, however, hold its own and weathered the economic storm, coming in just 2.4% lower than during the previous year. Considering how other segments have performed within the industry and how other non-automotive industries have fared, the enthusiast-driven restoration market has proven its resiliency.

With an accumulated total of $1.451 billion in retail sales for 2008, the restoration market achieved the second highest effort in history. Jim Barber, president of Classic Automotive Restoration Specialists and council chairman of SEMA’s Automotive Restoration Market Organization (ARMO), found a positive view of the situation: “Call volume is down from 12 months ago; however, the quality jobs are still coming. We have eaten into our backlog to a certain degree. The slowdown has given my staff time to focus on cost-saving measures and better customer communication.”

Ernie Silvers, Egge Machine and Speed Shop CEO and ARMO Person of the Year, saw the atmosphere differently: “During the first few weeks of November, folks stopped buying. Period. When buying started up again, we noticed folks were working very creatively to cut corners by reusing components that are normally replaced and/or not replacing all components of their engines.”

For a market of products that are arguably not necessities, resorting back to idle projects is not bad. The projects have not dried up, and the opportunities to engage new and existing customers remain. Gage put the market into perspective: “I actually haven’t seen much change in the past 12 months. Most restoration suppliers were coming off a record year when we entered the economic downturn. While this year’s business has been flat to down, it is still very solid, and although no one is dancing on air because of this, there is also not the grim hand wringing that pervades other segments of the automotive aftermarket.”

Some of these other segments—namely the light-truck market—depend heavily on new customers and, largely, non-endemic customers. Being fickle and un-invested in the hobby leads them to ditch the market quickly. Restoration and collector-vehicle consumers, on the other hand, are less capricious and have more market loyalty—a deeper resolve to continue the hobby even if that means temporary concessions.

For those reasons, the restoration niche picked up market share in comparison with the rest of the industry. Some segments receded, while the restoration market remained fairly flat. Nevertheless, some question whether the restoration segment will endure much longer.

“This is the magic question without a plausible answer,” Silvers said. “The industry has been dying for the last 13 years, according to my peers. I find this interesting, because our business has grown each of those 13 years prior to the current economic meltdown. Go figure.”

Re-Restoring Opportunities

Times are certainly less than ideal, but opportunities exist, and companies can use the crisis to realign with their audience. Calling on old customers, reaching out to new ones and reestablishing a strong customer-service ethic will build sales and customer loyalty—something beneficial when economic conditions force people to make difficult financial decisions.

Barber highlighted an oft-missed opportunity: “I believe hobbyists are always looking for the next collectible and continue to scour the market for cars needing restoration. One thing I believe everyone misses is re-restoration. We do a number of cars that were ‘restored’ years ago. They are sold, and a new owner wants to take the car to the next level. I see this fairly often, and yet no one discusses it.”

Over the course of the past decade, owners of restored vehicles have increased their spending on appearance parts and accessories, mainly to update their vehicles’ image. During 2008, however, there was an uptick in spending for performance and drivetrain parts. Suspension components, wheels and tires remained uniform.

Industry Voice: The Next Collectibles

	Annual sales: For the first time in recent history the Restoration market contracted during 2008; a modest change compared to other economic measurements and a tell-tale sign of the segment’s resiliency.

Barber noted his top picks: “We are seeing a surge in second-generation Camaros and Firebirds—especially Trans Ams. I believe the obvious are the ZR-1 Corvette as well as the Buick Grand National; however, I think some of the sleepers will be the WS-6 Trans Ams, anniversary Camaros and several sport trucks such as the [GMC] Cyclone and Typhoon, not to mention the special-edition trucks such as the Chevy SS and the Harley and Lightning-series Fords. The Monte Carlo Super Sport of the mid-’80s seems to be holding fairly steady and is poised to climb.”

Gage sees the once-neglected marques as hidden gems: “The aftermarket now makes it possible to do restorations that simply weren’t possible 15 or 20 years ago, and the prices that these cars are fetching make it a worthwhile proposition. There is also a greater appreciation for cars that weren’t necessarily all that popular in their time, such as four-doors and lower-end models like Biscaynes, Satellites and Falcons. There are more cars in play in the hobby than there ever have been, and these numbers will actually continue to increase for the foreseeable future.”

Looking down the road, Gage expanded to late-model possibilities: “Definitely cars of the ‘70s and ‘80s. There are even cars of the ‘90s that are developing a cult following. The Japanese collector-car trend hasn’t really caught fire yet, but it will. I think performance sedans like the Taurus SHO and the full-body Impala SS will continue to increase in popularity. Also, performance luxury cars like the Lincoln Mark VII are already collectible.”

Emerging Markets: Early Japanese

	Obscure domestic brands and vintage imports have created opportunities for enthusiasts to venture into new territories and for specialty equipment companies to support new markets.

Some see the emerging classic Japanese-vehicle market as another front for market potential. For the past decade—much longer in some cases—small gatherings of enthusiasts met to display the latest trends in vintage Japanese car and truck markets. Events like the Japanese Classic Car Show and make-specific meetings such as the Toyota Owners and Restorers Club’s Toyotafest and Motorsport Auto’s Z Car West Coast Nationals have provided owners the rare opportunity to showcase their hobby. Each year, the shows and product support grow larger.

“This is already taking place,” Barber said. “At this year’s ARMO New Product Showcase held in April at Spring Carlisle, we had ARMO member companies display new products for Japanese vehicles.”

Ben Hsu, co-owner and editor of Japanese Nostalgic Car, the first major domestic publication covering the market, sees the interest firsthand. Hsu commented on the growth of his magazine’s print and web-based products.

“Online membership is up 175%,” he said. “Since last April, we have seen a 292% increase in magazine subscriptions. The economy seems to have affected our ad sales more than our subscriptions.”

He also highlighted the opportunities: “Roughly 90% of our readers like to hot rod or restomod their cars, but the retro look is very important, so you might see engine swaps with modern cars but not the extreme body/interior modifications often associated with import/compact tuners. The remaining purists are perhaps the most dedicated and will go through great lengths to find new old stock (NOS) parts.”

Between youthful nostalgia and the curiosity for automotive history, the owners of these vehicles display similar profiles compared with traditional ones. Hsu noted that these owners are “…the post-boomer generation that grew up after the 1973 oil crisis and drove Datsuns, Toyotas and Mazdas as their first cars. A subset of tuners who were into the import/drifting scene that are genuinely interested in the heritage of their preferred marques.”

The difference, however, is the widely accepted notions of value. The biggest challenge is that most people still don’t consider vintage Japanese cars collectible or worthy of restoring. Many simply junk perfectly good examples, so their numbers decrease every year. Manufacturers may find that the interest doesn’t match that of, say, musclecars yet, and even the U.S. branches of the OEMs don’t do much to recognize their heritage.

By addressing emerging markets, manufacturers, retailers and service providers can strengthen the popularity of the entire industry. Younger generations of enthusiasts are joining the ranks and helping to keep the passion for collectible vehicles alive. They help pass along the restoration bug to newer generations and demographics.

As a final note, Silvers remarked on the classic restoration market, but his sentiments were just as true in both the new trends in classic domestic and foreign niches.

“Egge Machine Company will continue to encourage folks to ‘drive the wheels off them’ and enjoy themselves,” Silvers said. “And we’ll keep making the internal engine components so the engines can be rebuilt. As we have for the last 94 years, we’ll continue to do our part to help perpetuate America’s love for the automobile.”