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.”

A Pioneer in Performance

(Editor’s note: Shortly after our interview about Fred C. Offenhauser, Bill Smith passed away. His memories remain an invaluable addition to Offenhauser’s life story.)

You might not know that Fred C. Offenhauser had a pet pig named Olive Oil as a child and a poodle named Dolly as an adult. He made Sunday morning breakfast every week for his family. He loved his motor yacht and would cruise to Catalina or along the coast quite often.

What you probably do know about Fred C. Offenhauser is that he founded Offenhauser Equipment Corp., and his company was behind an extremely successful line of intake manifolds. Offenhauser parts became synonymous with performance.

The hardest thing to know about Fred C. Offenhauser is that we lost this industry giant in 1992.

Offenhauser grew up on a ranch in Perris, California, before moving to West Los Angeles around 1935, near his uncle Fred H. Offenhauser’s shop, Offenhauser Engineering. Uncle Fred was already well known in the industry for being the designer of the famous Offenhauser four-cylinder racing engine that dominated Indy starting in the ’30s, yet Offenhauser wasn’t born into an automotive environment per se.

His father wasn’t much of a car enthusiast, but Offenhauser had a natural gift when it came to machining. He ended up working for his Uncle Fred as an apprentice machinist, learning about engine design. He then joined the Navy and became a machinist working on blimps until his discharge in 1946 and his return to his uncle’s shop, where he was poised to take over the business. When circumstances prevented that from happening, Offenhauser instead opened his own place, Offenhauser Equipment Corp., which made hot-rod parts.

Detroit’s Big Three quickly came calling, with Offenhauser making hop-up kits for Chrysler. And when Ford introduced the Y-block in 1954, Fred and his team—his brother Carl, who was shop foreman, and chief engineer Ollie Morris—developed innovative intake manifolds. The team was also developing performance parts for the new Chevy V8.

“In the early years of our industry, Fred was a big contributor,” explained Don Smith of DCS Consulting & Export, who met Offenhauser as a teenager when he was just starting out in the business. “There was also the Big Three in manifolds: Edelbrock, Weiand and Offenhauser.”

But Offenhauser’s ultimate dream was to give the general public high-performance intakes.

“He provided a broad range of improved intake systems, helping thousands of enthusiasts to get more performance out of their average street machines and introducing performance to many who were on a more limited budget, popularizing performance to the masses,” noted Butch Lahmann of TunerWear. “He designed and engineered unique products to that end. In my opinion, he was the epitome of the American entrepreneurial dream.”

But that was before warehouse distributors were born.

“Most of the manufacturers at the time were making hard parts, not accessories,” explained Bill Smith, founder of the Speedway Motors speed shop, which at the time was essentially a start-up. “If you needed a bearing for your front wheel or a brake drum for your rear wheel, there were manufacturers who made them and sold them to established jobbers, who resold them to dealers, and that was how the system worked. Not all hard-parts stores wanted to even deal with accessories.”

Smith attended one of the only automotive shows in the country in the ’50s before SEMA and the SEMA Show existed. But he got to know Offenhauser in a hotel room after that Chicago show. He was there with a few other future industry heavy hitters, including Vic Edelbrock, and these product sellers and original charter SEMA members would later hold meetings back home in California to talk about who they were selling to who owed them money.

“SEMA basically started out as a collection agency,” Bill Smith said, and he joined when the organization invited dealers, jobbers, and warehouse distributors so that a distribution structure could be put into place for the industry.

“Most of the products that Fred innovated and came up with were very hard to manufacture,” Smith explained. “An Offenhauser product was something you could take out of a box and show to a customer and know everything would work right.”

“My dad never talked about being a pioneer,” said Offenhauser’s son Tay.

“I can look back on it now and say, yes, he manufactured and sold performance parts to dealers around the country in the early days. And he was out there doing what pioneers do: He helped lead the way in the development of speed parts for every enthusiast.”

Loyalist and Ambassador for the Industry

“Life doesn’t come with a remote…so get up and change it yourself!”
—Mornings with Menzler

Ask people who knew John Menzler to describe him, and “funny” will probably come up most often. But you’ll also hear “mentor,” “enthusiast” and “giver.” To his daughter, Kristi, the word is “hero.” Sadly, the automotive industry and the SEMA family lost Menzler in October of 2013.

Born in Phoenix, Arizona, Menzler’s first jobs were mowing lawns and a paper route. He didn’t put those early savings toward a car; rather, the first thing he bought was a necklace for his mom. But once he reached his teen years, he took to vehicles and the faster things in life.

“Anything to do with transportation,” Kristi said. “A wagon, a tricycle—if it moved, and he thought he could make it go faster.”

According to close friend Mitch Frey of Hughes Performance, “John led a colorful life before his involvement in the automotive aftermarket. He would tell me the story of riding his horse to school when the only paved roads were in the downtown Phoenix area. He was a cowboy and won awards for roping. He was also deputy sheriff for a time.”

Menzler’s automotive career launched with a stint pumping gas at a Blakely station, but he transitioned to sergeant in the U.S. Army Reserve Control Group, Rifle Specialty, from 1965 to 1967 and received an honorable discharge. By 1974, he was back in the automotive world, this time as a car salesman for a Chevrolet/GMC dealership. In 1978, he launched Inventive Marketing to focus on automotive-related parts, eventually adding Motofeet—a company known for its engine stand—under the same umbrella. Yet his calling seemed to be as a sales representative, working for companies such as Baer Brakes, Centerline Wheels, Dart Engines and Manley Performance.

“He liked people and loved the industry, and that gave him the opportunity to go places, see people, share his knowledge of cars and parts and be a part of the auto industry,” Kristi explained. “And when new things came out, he could share them. He was also able to be a part of ideas with other people on things that would enhance the industry.”

Menzler eventually moved to COMP Performance Group, where he remained employed until his final days.

“I truly believe that being hired by COMP was the turning point,” Frey said. “John had many jobs throughout his career, but his job as ‘ambassador’ was the perfect fit.”

Another perfect fit was SEMA. Kristi explained that Menzler’s late wife Wendy actually encouraged him to join by stating, “You will never be able to understand what this industry is about until you’ve seen what it’s like to give back and participate with a group of people who give back.”

He took to volunteerism immediately.

“John truly believed in SEMA,” Frey said. “When John spoke to a customer or another manufacturer, he always asked ‘Are you a SEMA member?’ If the answer was no, he would tout the advantages of SEMA and, more times than not, he would convince that person to join.”

Added Kristi, “His life changed because of the people in SEMA, and he went forward to change others’ lives.”

That included his passion for the SEMA Cares Pinewood Drag Races.

Dennis Overholser of Painless Performance met Menzler about 15 years ago through SEMA.

“He became a very close friend,” Overholser said. “We did a lot of things together on the education side for both the MPMC and the Hot Rod Industry Alliance councils, including the MPMC media conference. He’s someone who dedicated many years to the organization and many years to the aftermarket.”

Menzler’s honors included National Hot Rod Association Division 4 Person of the Year in 1988, the MPMC Industry Recognition Award in 2000, the SEMA Businesswomen’s Network Mentor of the Year and the MPMC Hall of Fame in 2010, the SEMA Person of the Year in 2011 and, posthumously, the inaugural Dick Dixon Legacy Award from the Hotrod & Restoration Trade Show.

The popular “Mornings with Menzler” inspirational quotes found on his Facebook page will be continued by Kristi, who said she has “thousands” of quotes that her dad put together for people to continue to enjoy.

“He was just one of those kinds of guys. He was one of us,” Overholser said, choking back tears. “I miss his friendship. That’s one of those tough ones.”