Thanks Ryan, never heard of the man before but he’s another of those unsung heroes. He not only had an idea, he had a purpose.
I'll join the choir...never knew this story. Very cool. This internet place has gotten very cluttered, but I'm glad the HAMB continues to hold it down.
In the early sixties there were only three advertising agencies in the speed equipment industry; Elliot-McMullen, Stan Goldstein and Fall & ***ociates. Ed's son, George was editor of Pop Hot Rodding. Stan hooked up with Jim Davis, former editor of Super Stock to form the first east coast-west coast agency. Back in the day (I hate that term) if a client company changed ad agencies, Petersen Publishing wouldn't accept an ad from the new agency if the previous agency was still owed money by the client. The speed equipment industry was a pretty tight knit community in the sixties and seventies.
I hang out here for the cars and the friends. The cutoff is when I was just a lad, so I didn't live it like some here. History lessons like this are also a huge draw, so Thank You Ryan for sharing these glimpses into the focus of the site. The past may be dusty but it's important to blow off the cobwebs and explore each shelf.
On the road at the moment, but this practice came to be after Vic Edelbrock strong armed Hot Rod after feeling he didn’t get his moneys worth one month. As a result, Wally Parks never followed the rule… Cuz Wally was punk rock and didn’t lay over for anyone. There’s some great unverified rumors about how it all went down. I’ll write what I heard when I have a chance.
Hello, In 1958, my brother had the bright idea of starting a business, specifically, a little speed shop called Precision Racing Engines. He wanted an attractive card, yet not too flashy. The purpose was to show the card to hot rod dealers and manufacturers in So Cal to get a dealer’s speed shop discount on parts we needed. Since we lived in a residential area, the closest business was a block away. It was in a row of homes and so, we were on the border of residential and an industrial zone. There were a couple of businesses next door to one of our friend’s houses and one near an apartment of another friend. So, as far as a Long Beach business license was concerned, we actually got a certified business license. We were now officially called a speed shop/engine building business. YES!!! Our cards were at several local larger well known businesses. They knew we were not a large company with an industrial shop. But, they allowed us to get a discount on anything we needed for our engine building business. Did we sell parts to others? Some of our own friends needed some parts and we were able to get them a good discount they could not have gotten anywhere else. Jnaki So, we were not in it for the money, what little we earned, but our own engine build, and another one, as well as working on our friend’s hot rod sedans was a part of our own business. We were having fun and doing what we liked to do… get a project started and work to finish it in a timely manner. We expanded our business to more shops and dealers farther away, like Moon Equipmant and Hildebrandt Mfg. Company, across their street in Santa Fe Springs. Yes, we still went to Reath Automotive and Joe Mailliard’s downtown speed shops as they gave us a good discount since we bought a lot of parts from them over the years. We weren’t in compe***ion with them, since we were a small company and needed parts they offered. Note Finally, one of the hot rod speed shops told us to sign up for an automotive hot rod speed shop list of So Cal folks. So, despite our small business, we signed up and our name, Precision Racing Engines was on a large list of shops/manufacturers/dealers across the So Cal scene. But, by the time the SEMA started in 1963, someone came to our house/shop to ask if we wanted to be in this new organization of local So Cal speed shops, etc. We had to tell them that we closed and were no longer in the speed shop business. Still building/modifying hot rod cars, but not like we did years earlier. We were now in college and had other things going on for both of us. He even had one of our business cards… Note 2: During those early days of filming, one part of our equipment was used to keep the moving, side to side action in focus was the tripod. Yes, one could just move the camera as the car zipped by. But, it was hand held and movement did show up on some of the early films I took. Our dad allowed us to use his old Hollywood brand tripod. The lower left side many years later to showcase what camera equipment was going ro be given to our granddaughter for her photo cl***es. Included was our Hollywood Tripod like the one in the Ed Elliot Advertising article. I did eventually get a Twin Lens Reflex Camera for larger color slides and photography, but, not a Rolliflex…Yikes. By the time we were settling into our college lives, away from taking action movies, our dad decided to get a larger 16mm movie camera. He bought a Beaulieu Camera, which was too large for us and for him. So, he took it back and came home with a smaller Bolex Movie Camera like in the article photo of Ed Elliot. He finally knew we were no longer into films, despite surfing road trips all over So Cal and Baja Mexico. We wanted to surf, not stand on the beach and film. So, that new camera was a lost cause… YRMV
It's a relatively common name, but was there any family connection between **** McMullen and Tom McMullen, of Street Rodder magazine fame?
The Jalopy Journal
