RIP Crane
 

RI.P. Crane Cams ! Just got an order redone with CompCams P/N s.
Sad
Harvey Crane personally set H/O up with Crane at our shop in Lawndale in '75.

So.... Crane Cams lasted a little over 10 years under S&S Cycle ownership? I didn't hear they had closed again. Very recent?

They haven't be owned by S&S for a while. A company called Micronite owned them after S&S. Then another Co. or 2 took over. They are now owed by holding co. under the Edelbrock Performance Group banner. Edel. is moving their operation to Miss.

I didn't hear they were owned by S&S.

A friend, big time bike builder and neighbor has deep connections with S&S.

They were owned by S&S for several years. I believe S&S owned them right after the first closure and that is when Crane really passed. They were never the same and continually got worse as each year passed and ownership changed hands.

Crane was a great Company back in the day along with Lunati.... For a while (and might still be) they were under the same umbrella as Competition Cams... The Wal-mart of the valvetrain companies... I really feel for the folks that relied on them for a pay check.

Harvey Crane ran a tight ship and had experts working for him, like Don Hubbard, Harold Brookshire, and Glenn Corwin. Don H was a VP at Crane and Ran Camshaft Machine Company (with Glenn C) in Jackson Michigan. Once they voted Harvey out of his company the game was done.

Now I know how you had your Cam Connection with CMC and Wolverine Blue Racer, Ken Crocie.

Tom V.

google "Edelbrock Group"

I had forgotten they were part of the Group that owns Edelbrock and others. Usually that's the kiss of death. As I have said many times, it's a predictable pattern. The holding company NEEDS to show the investors how smart they are so what's the fastest and easiest way to do that? Find the 5-10 top salary earners in a given acquired company and fire them immediately. Instant profit for the holding company. It happened at Edelbrock in a big way. Within a few days of the acquisition, Rick Roberts, 30+ year MIT Master Degree Chief Engineer was shown the door, along with the rest of the brain trust of the company. Your left with a shell of a company, a name and a reputation. After a few years, it's over. Holley Performance group is marching down the same path.

The acquiring company - read into it what you will:

https://www.iopfund.com/

Welcome to the MBA-ization of the USA.

In case you are not aware, Mike, Holley Carburetor has filed for Bankruptcy at least two times previously due to poor management from these "Group" Owners and their "Management Skills".

Tom V.

Wow! Didn't think it would happen this fast but, I must be some kind of savant.
Same wonderful management group, doing what they do best........ruining companies.

Press release today:

If there's one aftermarket performance company whose name is synonymous with classic American muscle, it just might be Edelbrock. As the manufacturer of carburetors, camshafts, cylinder heads, and more, Edelbrock has built a trusted reputation amongst classic car owners across the nation. There's a reason the company calls itself "the most respected name in performance."

This week, though, Edelbrock seems to be hurting. Daily Breeze has uncovered a filing with the California Employment Development Department which shows that Edelbrock will be closing its long-standing headquarters in Torrance,.
via Edelbrock

According to the filing, Edelbrock notified the EDD earlier this month that it would be permanently closing its Torrance base, affecting the facility's 270 employees with an unconfirmed number of layoffs. This includes workers in the company's office-based divisions like sales and advertising, as well as employees in the research and development, testing, and manufacturing areas. It did not list a reason for the closure.

In addition to the Torrance facility, California also has houses the two Edelbrock Foundries locations on adjacent properties in San Jacinto, California, roughly 95 miles east. It's not clear how many employees will be relocated to the foundries. The company also has a distribution center in Mississippi, plus its carburetor division and its brand new Race Center in North Carolina.

Edelbrock has been headquartered in Torrance since its inception in 1938. As the story goes, Kansas-born Vic Edelbrock Sr. moved to California in the early 1930s and fell in love with hot rod culture—including modifying his '32 Ford Roadster to squeeze every last ounce of power out of the car's factory "Flathead" V8. After failing to find the performance he wanted from off-the-shelf offerings, Vic fabricated his very own intake manifold, stamped it with his family name, and opened the doors to his own performance shop in 1938.

Edelbrock has been owned by Industrial Opportunity Partners (IOP), a private equity firm, since 2010. IOP also acquired COMP Performance Group in February 2020.

We reached out to both Edelbrock and IOP for comment and will update this story when we hear back.

Got a tip? Send us a note: [email protected]


They will be completely gone in a couple years.

The MBAs will soon be contracting out the Edelbrock products to China. You’ll be able to buy speedmaster heads with the Edelbrock name cast into them.

So you don’t think they are leaving tax crazy California to save money? One of the company’s I do service work for is leaving California also for Texas. Blame the state not the company edelbrock isn’t the first to get out of California they won’t be the last.

Well, Certainly there is a complicated matrix of taxes, politics and other external factors. I don't want this thread to get closed, so lets look at just what's changed. When an "investment group" buys a company or group of companies, their priorities radically change from the former structure. Edelbrock, Crane, and the others in the group are now solely in business to bilk short term profits from an existing good name and reputation. Whatever it takes to make that happen is THE ONLY thing that matters. I can guarantee you that not a single person on the new "board of directors" has ever installed a Crane cam, or an Edelbrock intake manifold. The company and it's products mean absolutely nothing, history and legacy mean nothing, except as it relates to immediate sales and profits. R&D is not needed or even wanted because that cost $ and does not show instant profit. If this means closing all facilities and farming everything out to Vietnam, China, India, or anywhere else where labor is cheap and "dirty" industry is not regulated, that's just fine. When the work can no longer get done, and the quality falters, or sales drop, simply shut down that company and move to the next one. There is no emotional buy-in, no reason to care other than short term profits. No family name or legacy to protect. It's just business. Wash, Rinse, Repeat.

Not all of us with them make a big deal of it. And for the most part, its the "Semi-Synthetic Oil" of the education world. Didn't want the usual Bachelor's Degree, don't have the money or motivation to get a Doctorate.

For me, it was money, I wanted to go on to U of L law school, but as it was, I graduated with my MBA and was broke, all at the same time. Back then, a plasma donation would get me the tank of gas I needed to get home.

Edelbrock burning rubber to get out of California

Nothing new here, but for interest this popped up today....

https://www.thedrive.com/news/39011/...PdrV5Zj58UhHSQ

.

Guys,in this Speedtalk thread is some good insight from Jon Schmidt who worked at Edelbrock.He has helped me with some of my projects including my latest with the repop of the bathtub intake.Enjoy.
https://www.speed-talk.com/forum/vie...hp?f=1&t=62892

Thanks for the link Tom, very interesting insight from those (in the know).

I found the China topic on the capabilities of quality enlightening.


SchmidtMotorWorks - "When electric sports cars become a little more affordable and the styles get better, they will make muscle cars of any era look like typewriters and sewing machines; fascinating devices that don't have a place in most peoples lives."

Sadly there is truth in this statement and currently a thread with some discussion.


SchmidtMotorWorks - "In a street race today, I'll take a Tesla S over a supercharged Camaro, Mustang or Challenger."

I see he was smart enough not to include a Pontiac... :D



Frank

He told me a year ago or so that it was falling apart.Interesting about trying to keep good help away from the space industry.Tom

Agreed, that's one industry there's undoubtedly a future in.


Frank

Thanks for that link, Tom. I enjoyed the whole thread. Your friend is insightful and interesting. He even mentioned my friend, Rick Roberts a couple times.

He just finished the Solidworks for the intake,will be 3D printed in the next 10 days.Tom

You have an advantage of possessing common sense and sound principles before and after getting your MBA. My observations of the world suggest that that is rare.

Eric

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is nothing news-worthy.

When Mr. Edelbrock released his book "Made in America", he had it printed in China.

That told me everything I needed to know about the future of the company.

If there's anything you want from their current product line-up, buy it now.

When a group of like minded Pontiac fans were trying everything under the sun to convince Edelbrock to make a cylinder head for our engines, Vic was a shrewd business man. Every time the subject was up for consideration, he was all business, expecting a legitimate business case for moving forward and a short path to his ROI. After several years, and the "noise" not going away from the Pontiac crowd, he reluctantly gave a lukewarm go ahead. Love them or hate them, the Edelbrock aluminum head changed the performance trajectory of our engines more than any other single aftermarket part. It also changed the company that produced it, making Edelbrock the niche cylinder head company for many orphan engine platforms. The heads may not have been the absolute best performing, but the quality was great and the heads had great potential. I just hate to see the massive "Brain Drain" from all these storied companies reduced to just a logo and eventually just a memory. But when all the people with passion are purged from the company, all that's left is IOP. (Industrial Opportunity Partners) An acronym destined for failure.

SchmidtMotorWorks wrote: Eventually I think it has to go to China, like any company, they have some things made in China now. Some of them are the best quality parts in the catalog.

PackardV8 wrote: For true. Back in a former life, I visited Chinese factories several times. Some were making shoddy stuff. I asked, "With low labor cost and no environmental or safety restrictions, why aren't your parts better?" They said, "It's all your fault. When your buyers come here, they don't ask, 'How good can you make it?' They only ask, 'How cheap can we get it?'

Then, I visited some Chinese factories making world-class products. They were usually partnered with European companies who had QC on site.

The Chinese can and will make anything we want to buy at the quality we want to pay for, at less cost than it can be made here. This keeps US consumer costs low, but ultimately it's a very expensive way to buy votes.

SchmidtMotorWorks wrote: Some of you may have seen a thread about a 440 Chrysler head, I designed one and had the tooling made in 2018, they still don't have the machining worked out. If they could employ people with the required skills, that would be a couple day deal. But the people with the required skills are not going to work in automotive when the pay and working conditions are so much better in aerospace.


If Victor Edelbrock was still running things, I'm confident quality products would be available, no matter the place of manufacture.

If it's not possible to get parts made here in the US, we have to look at alternatives and be grateful we can get them at all.

What's needed is the desire and demand for quality parts, they can and do get produced, it just needs to be requested and expected.

It takes passion, persistence and determination to get things done, something Pontiac people have been synonymous with for years.



Frank

China? , you mean Taiwan ����. That said, they "were" not the same thing. All the higher quality repops and products we like were made in Taiwan. Poor quality more a China mainland exclusive. Taiwan had a 50 year agreement with China to be somewhat autonomous, and ran itself like a capitalist country. Last year, China landed and broke that agreement because they wanted the money, monopoly, and power of the people there.
Already there are some shortages and price increases on products made there. The US ended up putting the same tarrifs on Taiwan that it has on China. I see more manufacturing headed to India.
On subject, long ago we lost Keith Black, TRW etc to be just names under other umbrellas. Meanwhile the emergence of garbage like "SCAT" from China has invaded. Its true, its better than it was, but it is not great.
I have seen a 25% increase in costs of some auto consumables, but also 5+ % increase in parts.