- Legendary engine builder Ed Pink has died at age 94.
- Notable for his drag-racing V-8s, Pink also built motors for NASCAR, Can-Am, and IndyCar.
- He was even the consultant Singer turned to for tuning the Porsche flat-six.
Watchmaking has long been the province of skilled artisans, experts with steady hands who can turn the intricate spinning of tiny cogs and springs into the exact measurement of time. Amateurs. Try getting a bunch of precision-milled metal to house controlled detonations at 9000 revolutions per minute, huffing nitromethane and hurling a spindly dragster down the quarter-mile, breaking into the six-second zone. Such was the life’s work of legendary engine builder Ed Pink, who has died at the age of 96.”Life’s work” can be taken literally here, as Pink tore apart the engine of his very first car pretty much as soon as he bought it, and built his last engine just a couple of years ago, at the age of 92. That motor was a Ford 427 SOHC “cammer” V-8, something that Pink built his career on back in the mid-1960s. It ended up getting shipped to Australia, as Ed Pink’s engines have a globe-spanning reputation.
Born in Los Angeles in 1931, Pink turned 16 just as the explosion of postwar SoCal hot-rodding hit. One of his first jobs was pushing a broom at pioneering hot-rodder Lou Baney’s shop, and he was soon out sending up dust contrails on California’s dry lake beds along with the rest of the speed-obsessed lake runners.After two years in the U.S. Army serving in the Korean War, Pink returned to Los Angeles and set up his own shop. He built his own dragster, and then started building engines for other racing teams. “Think Pink” became his slogan.The Enthusiast Network|Getty Images1967 NHRA Nationals at Indianapolis. Don Prudhomme, Lou Baney, and Ed Pink’s Baney-Prudhomme Ford 427 SOHC dragster.Pink built his reputation for timepiece quality drag-racing V-8s with the 426 Mopar Hemi and later the Ford V8s, helping heroes like Don “The Snake” Prudhomme and Don Garlits set and break records. He built the 2500-hp Chrysler elephant engines that ran in Funny Car racing in the 1970s. But he had a hand in everything over the years, from NASCAR to IndyCar motors, Can-Am racers, and even Porsche flat-sixes. When Singer was looking to develop engines for its reimagined 911s, it knocked on Ed Pink’s door. For more than half a century, Ed Pink was known by the nickname “The Old Master.” Others hung up their wrenches as the years passed, but while he officially retired in 2008, he stopped wrenching only at the very end. He was known to be a quiet, soft-spoken man, but his creations spat fire and thunder. When you hear a vintage dragster rumble up to the line and light up its tires in a haze of burn nitromethane, think Pink. Brendan McAleer is a freelance writer and photographer based in North Vancouver, B.C., Canada. He grew up splitting his knuckles on British automobiles, came of age in the golden era of Japanese sport-compact performance, and began writing about cars and people in 2008. His particular interest is the intersection between humanity and machinery, whether it is the racing career of Walter Cronkite or Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki’s half-century obsession with the Citroën 2CV. He has taught both of his young daughters how to shift a manual transmission and is grateful for the excuse they provide to be perpetually buying Hot Wheels.
Source: caranddriver.com
