Turbocharging is synonymous with performance. That is due in large part to the efforts and accomplishments of Bob Keller. A tireless advocate of turbocharger technology, Keller has perhaps done more to advance the acceptance of the technology than anyone else in the industry. At the same time, he has been a determined promoter of the performance aftermarket.

Upon graduating from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn in 1960, Keller began his professional career working as an aerospace engineer for Grumman Aircraft (Northrop-Grumman). Around 1963, he decided to merge his technical knowledge with his love of performance. He formed a small moonlight company called Turbonics, Inc., and began to pursue performance turbo applications for automobiles.

Keller left the aerospace business in 1973 to pursue his “turbocharger dream.” He joined the Flagship Marine Corporation and, in short order, persuaded the company to join SEMA. Keller exhibited the company’s line of TurboNautic products at the SEMA Show in Anaheim that same year. That was the start of a long relationship with SEMA.

In 1978, after holding key positions with numerous aftermarket companies, Keller decided to make a go of it on his own. He founded Turbonetics as a manufacturer and distributor of special-purpose turbochargers. Keller guided the company from its humble beginnings in his garage to the multi-million-dollar business that it is today. He holds multiple patents and is an active member of the SAE. Keller also has been published extensively in a variety of trade magazines and is a technical contributor to the NHRA. He sold Turbonetics in 1999 to Kelly Aerospace, where he still serves as a consultant and President Emeritus.

Keller’s ongoing efforts to educate consumers and the industry about the technical advantages of turbocharger technology are matched only by his efforts to promote the performance aftermarket. He served on multiple SEMA committees and task forces and chaired the Management Committee, the Environmental Strategic Planning Committee and the WD of the Year Committee. In addition to playing major roles in the formation of the Motorsports Parts Manufacturers Council and Sport- Compact Council, he served on the Select Committees of both. Keller served two terms on the SEMA board and was one of the original members of the SEMA/Ford Technical Initiative Task Force.

As chair on the Environmental Strategic Planning Committee, he authored the Voluntary Product Identification Program for emissions-sensitive products in 1993. His hard work on emissions and regulatory issues earned him yet another accolade, the prestigious SEMA Person of the Year award in 1993. Additionally, his continual recruiting of new SEMA members earned him several Ambassador awards.

Known as an avid hot rodder from the beginning, Keller’s passion for the performance aftermarket not only led to his own unprecedented success but undoubtedly benefited the entire industry as well.

Herb Fishel's mother tells the story of how-decades before winning the triple crown of racing, driving the pace car at the Indy 500 or being named one of Hot Rod magazine's 100 most influential people-he used to take the nipple off his bottle so he could wash his toy cars with milk.

While in diapers, he was training for his relationship with SEMA. As an adult, he pioneered the concept of a featured manufacturer, creating Chevrolet's "takeover" of the rotunda at the 1984 SEMA Show.

"This was the first time a vehicle manufacturer played a major role in the SEMA Show and led to the expansive growth of the Show," says Chuck Blum, president emeritus of SEMA. "Up to that point in time, OEM participation in the Show was very limited and inconsistent."

During his 40-year career at General Motors, Fishel said that he always believed in the connection between the high-performance industry and the auto manufacturer. It was a career that took him around the world and a long way from his native North Carolina.

Herb Fishel said that he had already made his mind up to pursue a career in auto racing well before he got to high school. "Cars totally consumed my thinking at that stage, [but I] wasn't thinking much beyond being a master mechanic," Fishel recalled.

Fishel's Uncle Bill, a mechanic at the local Lincoln-Mercury dealership, possessed a rather well-equipped home garage where Fishel spent his free time. "I would spend all my spare time with him after hours and on the weekends sorting parts and working on things like a Crosley Hot Shot and a midget-type race car powered by a Mall 11-horsepower engine," he said. "We also repaired lawn mowers."

That same Uncle Bill took Fishel and several other neighborhood kids to Winston-Salem's Bowman Gray Stadium each week during the summer. NASCAR ran modified and sportsman race cars there and, as Fishel noted, his group arrived early and stayed late. Billy and Bobby Myers became heroes to Fishel, who hung out at their shop and often followed them to the junkyards as they pursued parts for their '37 Fords.

Fishel may not have been looking past a future as a master mechanic in high school, but his parents were. Had they not intervened, he said, he would have skipped college and gone to work as a mechanic. But they insisted, so he enrolled at North Carolina State College to pursue a mechanical engineering degree.

While in college, Fishel kept close tabs on the racing scene and took particular notice of the Mystery Engine Caper at Daytona in February of 1963. [The 427-cubic inch "mystery" engine showed up at the 1963 Daytona 500 and is considered to be the foundation of GM big-block technology.

As he neared graduation, Fishel still had racing on his mind. "I wrote letters to Lee Petty, Junior Johnson and Bondy Long seeking employment," he said. "I never heard from Lee or Junior, but I did receive a response from Ned Jarrett indicating that they really appreciated my interest but really didn't have any need for someone with my credentials."

Undaunted, Fishel continued with his automotive interests-especially a fascination with the engines and cars that Zora Arkus-Duntov was designing and building. An on-campus interview with a General Motors representative led to a follow-up interview with Chevrolet Engineering in Warren, Michigan. Fishel said that his flight from Raleigh, North Carolina, to Detroit in April 1963 was his first-ever plane ride.

During that initial interview, Fishel was asked if there was anything special he'd like to do while visiting and he said that he'd like to meet Duntov. As luck would have it, Duntov was free for a brief meeting, and Fishel's fate was sealed. "With that introduction, they could have had me for nothing," he said.

Fishel spent his first six years with GM doing design and development work on all the engines he'd read about. In 1968, he was promoted to design engineer in the production High Performance Engine Group where he worked on the development of the 302 V8 for the Camaro, among other things.

Fishel's motorsports career began at General Motors in 1969 when he went to work for Vince Piggins in the Chevrolet Product Performance Group. "For the next seven years I was able to work one to one with many of my racing heroes: Junior Johnson, Bill Jenkins, Jim Travers and Frank Coon," he said. "I spent a lot of time working with Smokey Yunick at his Best Damn Garage in Daytona Beach." In 1976, Lloyd Ruess convinced Fishel to make the move to Buick to create the Buick Special Products Group. He returned to Chevrolet in 1983 to replace Piggins, who was retiring. "In addition to running the racing group at Chevrolet, I was able to spend more time with the high-performance and custom parts industry by participating in the major trade shows like SEMA and the Circle Track Trade Show," Fishel said.

Unfortunately, we have nowhere near enough space to highlight all of what Fishel accomplished during his 40-year career at General Motors. He led GM to the triple crown of racing by winning the Daytona 500, the Indianapolis 500 and the 24 Hours of Le Mans all in the same year. Hot Rod magazine named him one of the 100 most important people in the first 50 years of hot rodding in 1997, and he was inducted into the Hot Rod Hall of Fame that same year.

When asked about the highlight of motorsports career, Fishel said it was driving a 1953 Ferrari 250 MM in the 2001 Italian Mille Miglia with the love of his life, Sandy Heng. Fishel retired from General Motors in September, 2003. One of his final duties was to drive the Chevrolet SSR official pace car vehicle to start the 87th Indianapolis 500.

Born into a racing family in Waltham, Massachusetts, Steve Bolio has been involved with cars and competition since he began to walk. He spent five to seven nights a week at racetracks from the time he was three years old, and he started piloting go-karts when he was in grammar school. He has maintained that affinity for the track throughout his life and still, at age 60, manages to turn hot laps in karts when time and his business allow.

He has also competed for 45 years in the automotive specialty-equipment industry, working at a variety of jobs in retail, wholesale, new-product development and manufacturing.

His first break into the SEMA side of the industry came after graduating from Waltham High School and attending Bentley College, where he studied accounting and finance. Bolio began his SEMA career when his best friend, a local body shop owner, informed him that Carl Carpenter, owner of a speed-parts distribution venture called Auto Racing Equipment Company in Cochituate, Massachusetts, was looking for help. ARE was one of the top five distribution outfits in the country at that time and was located on a dairy farm.

Interestingly, one of Steve’s fellow workers at ARE was Charlie Siegars, who later became the chief engine builder at Hendricks Motorsports under Ray Evernham and is currently director of manufacturing services at Evernham Motorsports. At ARE, Steve met and made an impression on the man who was to serve as his mentor, John Scafidi. (Scafidi himself was named to the SEMA Hall of Fame in 1998.) Even though Bolio was only 25 years old and was considered too inexperienced by some, Scafidi got him hired into the Hurst Performance company, where Bolio worked in manufacturing and product management and eventually became national sales manager. With Bolio’s induction, there are now seven members of that original Hurst sales and marketing team in the SEMA Hall of Fame.

“I had a lot of role models and mentors,” Bolio said, “but John Scafidi had faith in me for some reason. I was the youngest guy at Hurst, and I had pretty much a free hand. Hurst was a heck of a company then. We bought the Schiefer clutch company, and I ended up being senior product manager, though I’m not sure how that happened because I know I didn’t want it. I was also heavily involved with the development of the Schiefer quick-change rear end, which was a phenomenal product. And though I wasn’t really involved with it, the Jaws of Life was another of our major accomplishments.”

As his career progressed, Bolio held key positions with Keystone Wheel and Appliance Wheel, where he worked to restructure the companies’ customer base, reducing the number of direct accounts to make the line more valuable to the distributors and taking sales in the East from $6.3 million to $14.7 million in less than one year. He then devised a plan to spread the base to ensure that the loss of an individual account would not have a catastrophic impact on the company’s sales and profits. “It took about six months and a huge team effort, but we got it done without a hitch,” he recalled, “and that’s something that manufacturers are still trying to figure out today.”

He said that the Keystone organization had the best sales team he’s ever worked with. “I had two manufacturing experiences with people who are legends in the industry,” he said. “When I was at Keystone Wheels, we just kicked ass. People like Chuck Blum [former SEMA president/CEO and Hall of Fame member], Don Turney [former SEMA vice president of marketing], Don Kane, Mike McGarry [currently sales manager for Unique Wheel], Barry Horlick [WIC member] and Steve Swanson [who replaced Bolio on the SEMA board].”

For the past 18 years (as of 2006), Bolio has been a partner with John “Skip” Scafidi, son of his mentor, in the Manufacturers Rep firm of Scafidi-Bolio & Associates. As he gained experience and developed his skills from his earliest days on, Bolio also recognized that the industry needed to organize, regulate and promote itself, and he became a hard-nosed proponent of all things SEMA. His tenure with the organization spans its history, from the first SEMA Show at Dodger Stadium to its most recent iteration in Las Vegas, and it is replete with top-level leadership responsibilities.

Bolio served six years on the SEMA Board of Directors and five years on the SEMA Executive Committee. As the only male member ever elected to the SEMA Businesswoman’s Network Select Committee, Bolio is obviously an adamant proponent and supporter of women’s advancement within the industry. He also headed the SEMA Awards Committee Task Force and serves as a member of the SEMA Show Committee. He currently consults with several of the SEMA councils and offers his time and support for the SEMA Mentoring Program.

Bolio has been an active member of the Manufacturers’ Rep Council (MRC) for many years and serves on its Select Committee. In addition to his involvement with SEMA, Bolio served four years on the Performance Warehouse Association’s Board of Directors. He was previously honored by SEMA with its Rep of the Year award in 1999, and he was recognized as the association’s Person of the Year in 2003. Throughout his life, he has been a force to be reckoned with.

“I tend to be outspoken,” he admitted. “If I think something is wrong, I’m going to say so. I do try to make sure that I have a strong position, and I can honestly say that I’ve never said or done anything involved with SEMA or the industry that I couldn’t back up at least 100% and was in the best interest of all SEMA members. I think being accepted for that—for me to get into the Hall of Fame, which, frankly, was a big surprise—tells me a lot of things. One, that I’m getting old, but also that you can push the issue and still be respected.”

While he is justifiably satisfied with his career and his professional accomplishments, his pride is even more evident when he speaks of his family. “The only thing that I might change would be to not have traveled as much when my three boys were young,” he said, “but Sally did a fantastic job, and I was there at all events unless it was the middle of the week and I had to be on the other side of the country. I have no regrets. I didn’t always make the right decisions, but I’m comfortable with the decisions I did make and what I’ve done.”

And the industry is proud of who he is.

From its inception, one of SEMA’s major objectives has been to work with local, state and federal governments to ensure a healthy and cooperative business environment for the association’s member companies. No one has been more active or more instrumental in those efforts over the past 30 years than Russ Deane, SEMA’s longtime general counsel. He has not only worked tirelessly to protect the legal rights of automotive specialty-equipment businesses, but he has also been active on a variety of committees and task forces to help lead the association to its current size and stature in American commerce.

Deane has lived in the Washington, D.C., area for most of his life. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from American University in Washington, D.C., and he earned a Juris Doctor degree from the Georgetown University Law Center. During the early stages of his career, he worked as a legislative assistant to a congressman and was also Staff Assistant to the president of the United States, and he held a number of positions with government agencies. It was during his years at the White House that he was introduced to the automotive aftermarket and SEMA, and he was eventually retained as the association’s Washington counsel and, later, began to represent the group as its general counsel.

His life-long interest in cars and motorcycles made his relationship with SEMA all the more ideal, but his work with the automotive industry was only part of a very active political and legal career.

“I have never considered any career other than the law,” he said. “The law has allowed me the opportunity to pursue a number of activities that otherwise would have been unavailable to me. These include developing historic properties and assisting in the development of democracies in a number of countries, such as Estonia, Ukraine, Georgia, Poland and Afghanistan. I have also had the opportunity to work with other groups in areas of interest to me, including the American Motorcyclist Association and the Sports Car Club of America.”

Early in his work tenure at SEMA, Deane served on the Sound Control and Technical Committees that addressed the noise and emissions-control laws in the states and at the federal level. Emissions matters figured prominently in his work for the association, including development of the Section 27156 Executive Order program, as noted by SEMA Chairman Mitch Williams in his letter to the Hall of Fame Committee nominating Deane for inclusion.

“When the State of California established laws that banned emissions-related modifications to cars and trucks, Russ Deane led the efforts to create an exemption program for parts that could prove, via testing, that they maintained the vehicle’s emissions compliance,” Williams wrote. “Today, this process is known throughout the industry as the California Executive Order (EO) Program. Russ then led the effort to have the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) accept and recognize parts with California EO certifications as legal for sale and use in the remaining 49 states. Without the California EO program and the EPA’s adoption of it, the performance aftermarket as we know it today would likely not exist or, at the very least, exist in a greatly diminished form.”

Deane also lead the counsel regarding the aftermarket’s legal challenges with EPA regulations concerning vehicle on-board diagnostics systems (OBD), Williams pointed out. Deane additionally challenged state and federal regulations that could have crippled or severely hindered the industry in the areas of wheels and tires, suspension, lighting and exhaust systems, and he was instrumental in fighting both state and federal “clunker” vehicle-scrappage programs.

“Deane also worked with SEMA Hall of Famer and former association President Chuck Blum to bring the aftermarket’s largest trade shows together in Las Vegas,” Williams said. “The combined events became Automotive Aftermarket Industry Week, which placed the SEMA Show and the association itself at the center of the global automotive stage.”

While he is perhaps the most accomplished attorney serving the automotive specialty-equipment industry, Deane is also a highly skilled and passionate enthusiast. He has raced both sports cars and motorcycles, and he has made numerous long-distance trips with friends on his favorite Harley-Davidson bikes. Even a brief list of those he numbers among his pals reads like a who’s who in the automotive world.

“Throughout the years, I have been fortunate to have had many mentors who have also been my close friends,” he said. “My relationship with friends and mentors has also been the most satisfying element of my career. In fact, most of my closest friends are part of the SEMA community. They include such luminaries as Wally Parks, Bob Spar, Chuck Blum, Brian Appelgate, Jim McFarland, Pete Chapouris, Dave McClelland, Vic Edelbrock and Chuck Schwartz, to name a few. There are many others, but I would be remiss not to list these. My friends have taught me a great deal about the business, but more about life.”

Of all the challenges he has faced, however, Deane said that the most daunting has been his effort to save and cure his wife Carolyn from cancer. “Even this challenge has been made more manageable as a result of the prayers and good thoughts from our friends, most of whom are in the SEMA community,” Deane said. He and Carolyn have been married for five years (as of 2007), and Deane has two sons, Rusty, 36 and Robbie, 33, from a previous marriage.

“In the end,” Deane said, “it is the relationships we have with others that provide richness and value to our lives. Value and respect those relationships, and everything else falls into place.”

Quality is a literal part of the SEMA mission statement and has always been implicit in everything the association does. Quality has also been inherent in the work and life of Raymond Bleiweis. From his numerous business ventures to his 56-year marriage, Bleiweis has been in it for the long haul, with a commitment to doing things right. Along the way, his contributions have added to the histories of some of the world’s most well-known automotive specialty-equipment companies.

Bleiweis graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx in New York City and attended City College of New York for two and a half years. Enlisting in the army at 18 with the outset of World War II, he attended officer candidate school and was commissioned a lieutenant. He became one of the few members of the military who served in both the European and Pacific theaters of the war, celebrating Victory in Europe Day in Antwerp, Belgium, and Victory in Japan Day in northern Luzon in the Philippines.

Bleiweis joined with his brother in a California plating company in 1952, where their primary business was re-chroming automobile bumpers. Bumper and Auto Plating operated five facilities around the United States and was eventually renamed Cal Chrome. Bleiweis left the company in 1957 to form Keystone Automotive, his own bumper-finishing enterprise in California’s San Fernando Valley and, eventually, nine other facilities around the country. Bleiweis got into the wheel business while at Keystone when a customer asked him to modify an original-equipment rim. At the customer’s request, Bleiweis cut the rim apart, plated it and then put it back together backward. Thus was born the first “chrome-reverse rim,” as well as one of the precursors to today’s massive custom-wheel business.

Keystone Automotive remains a formidable presence in the custom-wheel industry, but Bleiweis sold his shares in the company in 1965 to form Rocket Industries with his wife Claire. The company was named as a result of the burgeoning interest in missile technology at the time, and while Rocket branched into a wide range of product offerings over the years, the little-known phenomenon of custom wheels was the company’s mainstay early on.

“We were at a trade show in Columbus Circle in New York, and we were the only booth there showing wheels,” Bleiweis recalled. “We spent our time telling everybody what a chrome-reverse wheel was. Not too many people understood what we were doing.”

Still, the company took hold. In the late ’60s, Rocket Industries attended another trade show comprised of about 100 booths set up beneath the bleachers at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. That event evolved into the SEMA Show, and Bleiweis became one of the association’s early members.

Hurdles remained, however. Norris Industries, a major supplier of steel rims to the auto manufacturers, wouldn’t sell to aftermarket companies. On a fishing trip with the supplier’s purchasing agent and manager, Bleiweis managed to secure an agreement to buy Norris rims—but he had to buy 1,000 at a time. That fishing-trip agreement opened sales to the entire aftermarket, allowing the production of a wide variety of styled steel rims.

“We learned about wheels the hard way,” Bleiweis said. “Some of the ones we made were not quite right. We had to learn how to take the old wheels apart, strip and chrome-plate them and then put them back together with the bell side out, but we had all sorts of difficulties with alignment and so forth. Finally, we devised several pieces of equipment that checked the wheels.”

Those challenges led Bleiweis and others—including Arnie Kuhns and Mike Joyce—to seek quality standards by which wheels and, eventually, other products could be measured. Their efforts led to the formulation of recognized wheel specifications.

“We set up specs for steel wheels and then aluminum wheels,” Bleiweis said. “The people who were part of our wheel program had to comply with certain specifications for wheels utilizing load ratings and the test machines that we engineered. The program became well known all over the world, and I felt very good about it.”

The work of Bleiweis, Kuhns, Joyce and others led to the formation of SEMA Foundation Incorporated (SFI), which was primarily aimed at racing. Motorsports participants had to comply with the “SEMA specs” or be denied entry to sanctioned events. The program evolved into a separate entity, the SFI Foundation Inc., as a nonprofit that operates independently from SEMA and now provides specifications for everything from helmets and rollcages to clutches and driveshafts.

“Ray believed that the concept of self-generated industry standards was the only way to keep manufacturers from producing products that were not suited for the purpose intended,” said Kuhns, himself a 2002 inductee into the SEMA Hall of Fame. “Since 1982, the growth of SFI has been remarkable, but we might not have survived without Ray’s constant support and nightly phone calls.”

Raymond and Claire Bleiweis have three children, Mark, Brad and Laurie, as well as five grandchildren, and (as of 2008) Rocket Ray was still going into the office at the age of 84 even though he retired in 1995.

“I come in, but I don’t really work,” Bleiweis said. “I come in at 10:00 or 10:30 a.m., talk with friends like Billy Eordekian, who had a lot to do with my nomination to the Hall of Fame, and then go home early. There aren’t many people who were in World War II who are still around, but my doctor and I have an agreement. He’s going to keep me alive until I’m the last man standing.”

And that will undoubtedly be a quality venture all the way.

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.”

Growing up in Fremont, Michigan, Dick McMullen displayed a keen business sense early on, consistently selling more magazine subscriptions for the school drive than any other student. His trick of the trade? Call on people ahead of time for pre-order sales. But this wise, young salesman was also an auto enthusiast, so when McMullen was 13 and landed a job with the milk delivery man, it wasn’t just the free milk that he counted as a job perk—he also got to drive the truck.

The McMullen family eventually moved to Los Angeles, and he worked in a gas station while attending high school, handling everything from pumping gas to washing windshields. He was so good at his job that his boss gave him a raise, providing McMullen with enough cash to buy a car.

“Cars were always his interest,” explained his wife, Sally. By her count, McMullen owned more than 21 automobiles over his lifetime. In fact, he picked her up in a brand-new Oldsmobile for their first encounter, a blind date in 1954. “I thought, gosh, anybody that likes a nice car must be okay!” she said. But not everyone was thrilled with this love connection. “My mother was horrified to even think I would date a hot rodder.”

After attending college, McMullen enlisted in the Air Force, working in mechanics. Although he was stationed in Germany for nearly four years, boot camp took place in Texas, and that was where he and other car enthusiasts started a club limited to members of the Air Force. Following the service, McMullen and a friend from the Texas days, Dean Brown, launched the first newspaper dedicated to drag racing, Drag News. McMullen was the manager, handling the sales side of the business, which included clients ranging from Howards Racing Cams and Hedman Hedders to Weiand and Isky Racing Cams.

In 1963, McMullen sold Drag News and made the switch from publishing to advertising, joining Ed Elliott’s agency, which represented high-performance clients. The company was later renamed Elliott-McMullen Agency, and “…damn near every company that ever started in this industry went to that agency at one time or another,” said Bob Vandergriff of Vandergriff Motorsports, who was a friend and business associate/partner of McMullen.

It has been said that the idea of SEMA first came under discussion inside the Culver City, California, offices of Elliott-McMullen. “Dick thought the purpose of SEMA should be to unite the manufacturers and to have a united front,” Sally recalled. And McMullen remained dedicated to SEMA’s efforts. Over the years, he was involved in the establishment of the SEMA Memorial Scholarship Foundation and served on many SEMA committees.

After Elliott passed away, McMullen assumed full ownership of the agency and renamed it McMullen Advertising (which later became McMullen Design and Marketing). But one day, explained Sally, Bob Hedman told McMullen that he was thinking of selling his company and said, “If you ever hear of anybody that wants to buy it, let me know.” McMullen and Vandergriff took over Hedman Hedders, selling products worldwide.

Sadly, McMullen passed away in 2005 and will receive the SEMA Hall of Fame award posthumously. McMullen “…loved doing what he did,” said Sally. “He was very low-key, not a high-powered salesman, pushy kind of guy, but very caring.” Vandergriff fondly remembers him as “honest, sincere and extremely creative—a solid personality and trustworthy.”

McMullen’s hobbies were “cars, cars, cars,” according to Sally, and he had a passion for people, the industry, the association and his work. “He always told our kids, ‘Whatever you go into, be sure it’s something you like. Otherwise going to work every day will be a pain,’” she said. “That’s what he did, so his work was his fun.” Vandergriff recalled that what McMullen loved most about his work was “…helping people grow. He’s gone, but he’s still watching.

As long-time editor of one of the most popular and successful automotive magazines, Gray Baskerville’s contribution and influence on the industry are wide spread. But holding the senior editor title at Hot Rod magazine for about 30 years isn’t the reason that he’s being inducted into the SEMA Hall of Fame. Rather, it’s the passion and sincerity that transcended from Baskerville’s writing, and his ability to captivate readers that earned him the honor. Like most, if not all, other SEMA Hall of Famers, Baskerville has a deep-seated love for cars that clearly manifests itself in all that he did.

He drove his beloved 1932 Ford roadster on a daily basis, racking up about 250,000 miles on it before he passed away in 2002. Not one to adapt to corporate rules or aspire for the corner office, Baskerville is equally well remembered for wearing flip-flops and shorts in the office, as he is for his ability to captivate readers in ways that no one else could. His writing style was so full of life and excitement, that his text was rarely changed by editors--even when he invented words that did not exist in the dictionary. Even after he retired, Baskerville kept his office and continued to write for both Hot Rod magazine and Rod & Custom.

In a 2012 interview with SEMA News, Carmen Arias, controller at Arias Pistons, talked about her father’s passion for his work. “Great creators, all they do is think,” she said. “Twenty-four hours a day, they’re thinking. It never stops.” She said that Nick Arias Jr. seemed puzzled—and maybe a little insulted—when asked about retirement. “Retire?” he replied.

To the entire Arias family, work is viewed as a privilege. In fact, family Patriarch Nick Arias Sr. attempted retirement in 1968, but he returned to work for his son’s company—Arias Pistons—when it opened in 1969. Nick Sr. was a blacksmith by trade and worked for Southern Pacific Railroad for 45 years. He then went on to run the shipping department at Arias Pistons for almost 20 years. With that kind of hardworking role model, it’s no surprise that Nick Arias Jr. has been so successful—and it’s equally clear why he has never considered retirement.

On the wall at Arias Pistons is a diploma from Polytechnic High School in Los Angeles: ever since the counselors there suggested auto mechanics to him, Nick Arias Jr. has been in love with engines. In addition to his studies in the classroom, Arias Jr. and his neighborhood buddies Joe Pisano and Kenny Bigelow formed a car club while still in high school, the Photons. Named after a particle within the atom, photons travel at the speed of light—especially when driving down Sepulveda Boulevard, South Broadway and Main Street in Los Angeles. At least in part, it was this nighttime ritual that gave birth to what’s now referred to as the automotive specialty-equipment industry. 

After graduation, Arias Jr. joined the 40th California National Guard, shipping out to the Kumsan Valley above Seoul, Korea, where he was assigned to work in the motor pool during the Korean War. Back home, however, fellow Photon club member Kenny Bigelow was attempting to get his name in the record books and was killed at the El Mirage speed trials. 

El Mirage is a dry lakebed and was home to the 100 Mile-an-Hour Club of South Los Angeles, which Arias Jr. had been a member of for several years. In tribute to his friend Bigelow, Arias Jr. purchased the ill-fated ’37 Chevy coupe in a partnership with fellow veteran Bob Toros when he returned from Korea. As a team, the two salvaged the GMC engine from the wreck, transplanted it into another ’37 and ultimately used it to power their way to a championship as Russetta Timing Association’s most successful Class A and B Coupe. The two also advanced the existing record from 136 mph to 148 mph unblown on alcohol, winning the Kenny Bigelow trophy two years in a row. 

With the success of the ’37 Chevy Coupe, Arias Jr. joined the Screwdrivers car club of Culver City, alongside members that included Craig Breedlove, Don Rackeman, Lou Baney and Joe Pisano. During the buildup of the GMC block, Arias Jr. was also offered a job at Wayne Manufacturing, purveyor of high-performance inline six-cylinder engine parts. This proved to be an ideal location, because Frank Venolia was making pistons next door and selling them to Arias Jr.’s boss, Harry Warner. Arias Jr. thereby had the chance to learn everything he could about designing heads and pistons at the same time. 

A few years later, Arias Jr. was introduced to Louis Senter via fellow Screwdriver member Rackeman, who was working next door to Senter’s Ansen Automotive. It was rumored that Ansen’s piston division needed an overhaul, and knowing that there was a huge market potential for that type of performance part, Arias Jr. suggested that Senter sell him the piston business, including the machinery. One month later, Arias Jr. bought out the business from Senter, and he opened Arias Pistons in 1969. 

Arias is a legend not just for his forged pistons, but also for his ’72 Hemi-head conversions for big-block Chevys that were known as “Hemi-Chevys,” as well as his complete 10L engine that dominated tractor pulls and drag boat races, an 8.3L powerplant for Top Fuel and Alcohol drag racing, the Arias four-cylinder for USAC midget circuits, the Arias V6 Hemi, A/R Boss 429, Howard 12-Port GMC…and more. On a personal note (in 2012), he and his wife Carmen celebrated 55 years of marriage with their family, including five children and 13 grandchildren. 

Carroll Shelby once said: “I’ve had more failures than successes in my lifetime, and some of the failures have been more fun than some of the successes.” Nick Arias Jr. has the same philosophy about life. And speaking of Shelby, it’s rumored that Arias Jr. is currently working on a hemispherical  head for the small-block Ford and that it would fit nicely under the hood of one of those old AC roadsters, otherwise known as the Cobra. 

SEMA is grateful to Nick Arias Jr. for his contributions to the specialty-equipment industry. He’s always been a thinker, and we hope he never stops.

Is there a movie, television series or celebrity that George Barris hasn’t customized a car for?
 
That’s the question you have to ask when visiting his shop in North Hollywood, California. Every inch of the place is packed with photos and memorabilia from the countless stars he has known and the Hollywood vehicles he has built for them over the course of his 60-plus-year career. 
 
Remember K.I.T.T. from “Knight Rider?” The General Lee from “Dukes of Hazard?” The “Munsters” coach and the “Beverly Hillbillies” pickup? Those are just a few of his many iconic creations. Oh, and then there’s also one of six Batmobiles he built for the 1960s “Batman” television series still sitting in his showroom. (The first of the group, which Barris customized from a 1955 Lincoln Futura concept car, went for $4.62 million at auction earlier this year.)
 
But it’s not his cars that Barris is most proud of; it’s the relationships he’s forged.
 
“I’m a people guy,” he smiled. “People to me are more important.”
 
Indeed, Barris has known—and built cars for—an extensive roster of legendary customers: Clark Gable, James Dean, Elvis Presley, John Wayne, Frank Sinatra and the entire Rat Pack. The names go on. Given all his achievements, it’s amazing that his high-school principal considered him least likely to succeed.
 
Barris was born in Chicago, but his mother died when he was only three, leading him and his brother to move in with an uncle in Sacramento, California.

“When I went to school, I wanted to do cars,” he recalled, “so I went to Roseville High where they regretfully sent me to the metal class to make drainpipes. I didn’t want to make drainpipes. So I quit. Next I went to San Juan High School. Same thing. I said I wanted to design and make cars. They said, ‘We’ll put you in cooking class.’ I quit. I went and hung around a body shop. They taught me how to weld with an acetylene torch….”

Barris quickly put his shop skills to work, customizing his first car at age 14—a ‘32 Ford with cat’s-eye taillights. He did eventually make his way back to high school for his diploma. Then, after his brother completed military service, the two resettled in Lynwood, California, where Barris opened his first custom shop.

“I got really strong into aftermarket parts, but I not only did car parts; I did toys,” he said, explaining that he designed and constructed model cars for Revell and other toymakers in advance of real-life vehicle debuts. “Then, when I got married, my dear wife, who has since passed away, was very energetic about marketing,” he said, “so I learned how to be a marketing wizard along with creating and designing cars.”

And what’s his favorite all-time innovation?

“I really don’t have one, because each one was a different challenge,” he answered modestly. “And I love challenges.”

Moreover, Barris has always drawn heavily on specialty equipment to meet his challenges. In fact, if he faults today’s customizers for anything, it’s in forgetting their aftermarket roots.

“The custom industry is growing by leaps and bounds,” he said. “Every show I go to is expanding. But we’re losing aftermarket parts—and by that I mean bolt-ons. Most everyone nowadays is chopping tops and so forth. They’re not putting on a bolt-on bumper, a headlight or something like that. They make everything now. The industry and SEMA need to continue to make it easier for the enthusiast not only to home-build but shop-build a vehicle.”

Barris has promoted grassroots customizing with many how-to articles for Motor Trend, Hot Rod, Car Craft and related magazines. And he’s still pushing fresh design trends for new cars, including hybrids. Despite a long list of international accolades, Barris considered induction into the SEMA Hall of Fame a special honor.

“I’ve belonged to a lot of associations, and I’ve gotten a lot of awards from the movie industry, but SEMA is my world,” he said. “I’m a car guy.”