Nick Arias
Like a lot of young men coming out of world War II, Nick Arias Jr. was crazy about the fast, loud cars that were part of hot rodding and liked how everyone involved was trying to make their cars out perform what the factories offered. In 1949 Nick attended the first organize drag race held at Goleta, California and was completely hooked. Nick went to work at Wayne Manufacturing, a company that built six-cylinder GMC engines and started learning just what was involved in building an engine. Located next to Wayne Manufacturing was a company owned by Frank Venolia (not the Venolia pistons known throughout the racing community) that manufactured pistons for Wayne Manufacturing engines. While learning about engines at Wayne’s, Nick also learned a lot about pistons, their makeup, and how different configurations and alloys work by hanging around Frank’s place. At the same time, he was learning from these people he was experimenting with various combinations of his own and learning a lot by trial and error. A lot of what the hot riders were trying out in their cars at the time simply wasn’t in any book, so he joined the ranks of guys looking for ways to go quicker and faster by experimenting with whatever it took, including making their own parts and pieces.
In the 1950s, Nick started attending meets at the dry Lakes and Bonneville where he ran a six-cylinder GMC powered coupe on alcohol. During this time Nick met Lou Baney, who was racing a Cadillac powered dragster, and before long he was working as part of Lou’s crew. This was the time when car clubs were big, and Nick became a member of the Screwdrivers Car Club and also join the Rosetta Timing Association, which was one of the big associations running races at the dry lakes.
Working at Wayne’s Manufacturing and playing with his hot rods was fun, but in 1969 Nick decided it was time to get serious about his life and at the same time turn his hobby into a way to earn a living, so he founded Arias Pistons. Nick’s goal was to provide the consumer with the very best pistons and other parts available so they could go quicker and faster but with more reliability.
In 1972, Nick introduced a Hemi head conversion for the big block Chevrolet engines. This gave the people who liked and wanted to run the Chevrolet engine the opportunity be more competitive against those using the more popular Hemi head Chrysler engine. In 1975 Nick followed the Hemi head conversion with a 10 leader “top fuel” design engine that was actually designed for use in offshore power boat racing. This “monster” engine was soon followed with an 8.3-liter engine designed to meet the rules of drag racing. Over the years, Arias Pistons designed and built engines and pistons for everything from street rod machines to all-out racing to competition aircraft.
Nick remained active in the sport designing and building various parts and pieces for the enthusiast and playing around with custom engine components such as a 12 port Chevy head introduced by Zeke Zacherson for the lake events. Nick also opened a new company, Nick Arias Jr Racing Components, with the purpose of offering the racers some great products.
Nick was recognized with awards from several organization as an innovator, a quality parts manufacturer, and a designer; but one of the awards he was the proudest of is the 2000 California Hot Rod Reunion Lifetime Achievement for Manufacturing Award. Also ranked as one of his proudest moments was being inducted into the Gold Coast Roadsters and Racers Hall of Fame at the 1996 annual GAS UP in Buellton, California. This honor placed Nick in the ranks of legends such as Ed Iskenderian, Clay Smith, Andy Granatelli, and a host of others.