Legends in Hot Rodding – Ed Pink: The Life of a Powerplant Maestro
Writing about legends of hot rodding comes with a definite demographic risk. And lately it seems many of our legends are crossing the finish line, moving onto the great car show and drag strip in the sky. The latest, Ed Pink, arguably the most successful engine builder of his generation, passed away April 27, 2025.
Name another who prepared, assembled, and tuned engines that won both the NHRA Top Fuel title and the Indianapolis 500.
While he was born in Los Angeles in 1931, Pink and his parents moved briefly to Omaha when he was a toddler. When the heartland didn’t capture their hearts, they packed up the family’s ’37 Chevrolet sedan and returned to the City of Angels.
Ed’s father opened a paint store, selling finishes for both homes and automobiles. Young Ed, though, had no interest in such a life. What did appeal to him was hot rods, and SoCal had many a modded roadster to rev up his curiosity.
He took shop classes at Dorsey High School in LA, which just happened to be close to Vic Edelbrock’s shop. This bit of kismet kickstarted Ed’s education in engine mechanics, and later he was fortunate enough to hang out at – and learn from – speed shops run by Edelbrock, Bobby Meeks, Lou Baney, Louie Senter, and Eddie Meyer, legends one and all.
“My first car was a 1922 Model T. I picked it up for $50,” Ed recalled. “My very first actual hot rod, though, was a ’29 Ford roadster. I ran it at El Mirage and later at Bonneville. It ran a 3-71 supercharged 239c.i. Flathead on fuel.” Later, he picked up a ’36 Ford coupe and quickly jettisoned the stock induction bits for Edelbrock components.
At home the 17-year-old Pink floated between helping dad at the paint store and absorbing the alchemy of horsepower at Lou Baney’s Golden Eagle Gas Station. The Korean War briefly interrupted his education, but it resumed upon his return when he joined Barron-Tattersfield cylinder heads.
Next on Pink’s tour of legendary race shops was a stint with Eddie Meyer – a pioneer in speed parts for Flathead V8s. There he fine-tuned his machining skills and absorbed as much knowledge as possible. The vibe of motor racing was palpable at Meyer’s, as Eddie’s brother, Louis, just happened to be a three-time winner of the Indianapolis 500.
By the late 1950s, Pink was prepping racers’ engines in an informal way, and one of his early customers was “TV Tommy” Ivo, a successful local drag racer and child television star.
“Ed worked out of a little shop complex in the San Fernando Valley owned by Tony Nancy,” Ivo remembers. “He did all my machine work, heads, block line-boring, cylinders, everything I needed to assemble the engines myself. He was always a very personably guy, real salt-of-the-earth type.”
(For those unfamiliar with Ivo, he went on to become one of the early pioneers during the 1960s golden era of drag racing. NHRA ranks him 25th in the top 50 drivers between 1951-2000.)
Pink officially launched his own business 1961. It got off to a slow start. “I was just getting started,” Pink once told hot rod historian Dick Martin, “and because I had no recent business history, I had to put deposits on everything. The phone, gas meter, electrical, and by the time I was done I had $35 in my pocket, plus a wife and two kids.”
Luckily, Pink’s business piggybacked on the era’s drag racing boom. He looked to capitalize and figured his best bet would be to campaign a digger himself. He dropped a Pink-massaged Hemi into a Don Long chassis. Off the trailer, it won at Lions Drag Strip with Mike Snively at the controls.
A portent of Pink’s engine mastery came soon thereafter. In 1965, Pink and Snively unloaded their rail at the U.S. Fuel and Gas Championships in Bakersfield. While he eventually lost to Don Garlits, Ed’s car made a dozen or so passes during the weekend and never once needed the cylinder heads removed – an unheard-of level of reliability. From that point on, Ed Pink Racing Engines never wanted for customers.
Don “The Snake” Prudhomme was one of many drag racers who sought out Pink’s services. In 1974, the Pink-Prudhomme combo proved nearly unbeatable, winning the Gatornationals, U.S. Nationals, and the PRO Challenge. A year later, the duo overwhelmed the Funny Car competition, capturing 13 of 16 national events.
“Ed’s secret,” Prudhomme explained to the Gazette, “was his attention to detail. When you pulled the pan of an Ed Pink engine you knew it was an Ed Pink engine. It looked like a Rolex. He would even paint the inside of his blocks with a special paint that promoted oil circulation. At the track, he made sure his engines performed as he expected them to.”
The list of drag racing all-stars who relied on Ed Pink’s powerplants included Prudhomme, Ivo, Nancy, plus Don Garlits, Gene Snow, Shirley Muldowney and Kenny Bernstein, to name but a few.
In 1981, Pink was hired by several CART teams to prep their turbocharged Cosworth V8s. This meant applying his experience in building motors that ran for only seven seconds to those that had to run three-plus hours. In 1983, Tom Sneva drove his Pink-prepped Cosworth to Victory Lane at Indy, driving for famed owner George Bignotti.
Mike Green, lead mechanic on that Sneva-winning car, knew Pink for 45 years. “If Ed had a talent that caused him to be successful, it was his meticulousness,” Green said, “that and his encyclopedic knowledge of the workings of a racing engine, from fuel delivery to camshaft design.”
A few years later, Pink tackled the USAC Midget series when he was approached by Steve Lewis, whose Nine Racing had fielded winning cars for Tony Stewart and Stan Fox. Pink agreed to add firepower to the new Ford four-banger.
Between 1996 and 2004, the Lewis-Pink collaboration captured nine USAC National midget titles, with drivers Kenny Irwin, Jr., Jason Leffler, Kasey Kane, Dave Darland, and J.J. Yeley. Their trophy case included hardware from winning more than 100 main events.
“Ed is a true pro,” Lewis explained. “He was totally committed to building the best engine that is humanly possible. More importantly, he elevated the professionalism of the entire team. When you work with Ed Pink you get more than horsepower.”
In 2006, Lewis developed a Midget engine for Toyota. It proved potent out of the box, earning pole position and winning the prestigious Cooper World Class at Phoenix in its debut. That Toyota engine went on to win 10 main events.
Pink also applied his Midas touch to Porsche’s famed flat-six air-cooled engines. Jim Busby is best known as a winning team owner and driver of Porsche 962 prototypes during the 1980s and 1990s, both in IMSA and in Europe.
In 1985, Busby was running Porsche 962s with limited factory support. Looking for an edge, Busby reached out to Pink, who agreed to prep his engines, his first ever crack at air-cooled motors. Most importantly, he helped reprogram the computer code that managed the factory Porsche Bosch Motronic management system. Porsche had de-tuned the factory engines to run 24 hours – much longer than the six or so hours in IMSA competition. Once the ones and zeroes had be reset, Busby dominated.
In 1996, the CART-Indy Racing league split brought Pink back to Indy cars and the Indianapolis 500. In hopes of fostering a more financially friendly racing series, the IRL recruited new manufacturers to join the series. Nissan, with its Infiniti brand, would join for the 1997 season.
Frank Honsowetz, Motorsports Director for Nissan North America, enlisted Pink to develop the Infiniti 4.0-liter, 32-valve V8 for the1997 Brickyard. For the next four years, the effort struggled with a limited budget, yet, sometimes talent prevails: Eddie Cheever drove his Infiniti-powered Dallara to its maiden victory at the 2000 Colorado Springs race. When the Infiniti program finally closed, Honsowetz went to work for Pink.
Pink eventually sold Ed Pink Racing Engines and began building hot rod and muscle car motors. He also returned to his hot rodding roots, cruising in a pristine Roy Brizio-built ’29 Ford highboy, which earned the Stroker McGurk Award for Best Highboy at the 2015 Goodguys West Coast Nationals at Pleasanton.
“I’ve only had one ethic in life, and that’s to work hard,” Pink once said. “If I had any secret, it was to learn as much as I could. Education was the key. With knowledge, nothing can scare you, whether it’s a midget motor, a blown Hemi, or a Porsche flat-six.”
It’s unlikely in this era of specialization that an all-arounder like Pink will emerge again. His unrivaled record can be found in the record books of nearly every motor racing discipline. To say he will missed is a gross understatement. Happy trails, Ed. Thanks for the ride.
