Jack Engle
Jon Harrison Engle, better known as Jack, was born in Canada but his family moved to Southern California very shortly after his birth so he could be considered a native Californian by most people. From a very early age Jack had an intense curiosity for all things mechanical leading him to build everything from go carts to motorized bicycles. For Christmas one year he received a drill press which suited him perfectly and a gift that was the basis for his future career in the performance business.
Jack purchased his first car while still in high school and was soon modifying it for greater performance. Growing up in the Santa Monica, California area, Jack was soon hanging out with people who would become real pioneers of the sport. His friends included such notables as Stuart Hilborn, Frank Coon, and Jim Travers. Around this time Jack joined a local car club, the Low Flyers, and began competing against his rivals at the various dry lake meets in the area. His first camshaft came from Edwin Winfield’s shop which was installed in a centrifugally supercharged, four-cylinder “B” Ford engine that was further enhanced with a Cragar had and shoehorned into a Model A Ford highboy roadster. This combination powered Jack’s roadster to a top speed of 113 MPH. Unfortunately, one week after this impressive run, World War II was launched.
Shortly after the beginning of the war, Jack got a job at North American Aviation where he worked in the prototype machine shop and where he learned to use blueprints and a mill to produce finished aircraft parts. While he enjoyed his job and what he was learning, like most young men at the time Jack wanted to be a part of the war effort so he joined the Navy. Before long, his mechanical skills were recognized and Jack was sent to the Packard Marine Engine tech school. After graduating from Packard, Jack became an engine man on a PT boat repair ship where he further honed his mechanical skills.
After the war Jack open and engine machine shop in the back of his dad’s service station where he rebuilt and modified engines for the locals. Before long he built his first cam grinding machine and began experimenting with the various combinations for greater performance. After the war and throughout the 1950s and 1960s the hot rod craze continued to grow as did Jack’s business and before long he moved into a larger facility with more equipment greater growth potential.
During the time of the infamous “cam wars” when all the cam grinders were promoting their latest victory in weekly ads, Jack’s clients were finding victory circle on a regular basis but a lot of the racers were being paid by other cam manufacturers to display their decal on their cars; so there was also a lot of confusion regarding whose cam was actually being used.
Jack Engle could have easily been the model for the “quiet man”. He did not waive his own flag, didn’t want to turn his business over someone to run and didn’t want his photo and every weekly newspaper. What he really wanted and accomplished was to produce quality parts that actually worked and be left alone to do this. The list of racers who won using his camshafts ranged from the Snake and the Mongoose to Don Moody, Tommy Ivo, Beebe and Mulligan, and most of the other legends of that time. Engle cams also provided the boost that triggered the VW powered entry into so many areas of racing from off-road to drag racing and from midgets to airplanes. Jack was a true pioneer of the sport in a major contributor to its growth by providing the necessary parts to make the cars run faster and more consistently.