Iconic — adj. \ī-ˈkä-nik\ — widely recognized and
well-established; acknowledged for distinctive excellence

What are the most iconic brands in the automotive performance aftermarket?

We thought about that for a while and collected votes from thousands of hot rodders and performance enthusiasts on Summit Racing’s Facebook and Instagram in search of the answers.

The word “iconic” may mean different things to different people, but we chose to roll with the dictionary-based definition of the word.

And the brand you chose as the #1 most iconic aftermarket brand is…

#1 — Edelbrock

If one name has earned the spot atop our list of iconic brands, it’s Edelbrock.

But before Edelbrock was loved and admired by legions of hot rodders for its speed parts, it was better known for its groceries by folks near Wichita, KS.

The Edelbrock family owned a successful grocery store in rural Kansas, but a series of hard-luck events would lead a young Edelbrock Sr. down a completely different career path.

Vic Edebrock Sr.  left school at age 14 to help support the family when its grocery store burned down in 1927.

His first job was at an auto repair shop, where he developed his already-impressive skills as a mechanic. In 1931, when the Great Depression hit Kansas, Edelbrock Sr. took his talents to California and eventually opened up his own repair shop.

The repair business grew, but his purchase of a 1932 Ford roadster project car in 1938 proved to be a turning point for Edelbrock. The Flathead-powered 1932 Ford roadster was Edelbrock’s first foray into the world of hot rodding and inspired the development of Edelbrock’s first “aftermarket part,” the Slingshot intake manifold.

“(Vic) wanted something he knew would perform better,” said Smitty Smith, Edelbrock Technical Sales Coordinator and resident historian.“The Slingshot balances out the intake distribution, just like an X-pipe equalizes pressure from side-to-side. It also has a cut-down center divider to improve the fuel atomization at high rpm.”

This new manifold was the first of many products to feature the Edelbrock name.

“He learned in World War II how machining could make a good product,” Smith said in an earlier interview about the Slingshot manifold. “He used this knowledge to come up with new cylinder heads. At the time, Ford used what was called “Denver” cylinder heads. The Flathead didn’t run well at elevation, so Vic took the Denver heads and milled them for higher compression.”

As Edelbrock Sr. continued to race and test his new manifold on the dry lakes of El Mirage in California, people began to take notice of its performance benefits. Between 1938-’41, Edelbrock made about 100 Slingshot manifolds. Following WWII, Edelbrock built off the success of the Slingshot manifold to create other Flathead V8 parts, and the company transitioned from repair shop to a “power and speed equipment shop.”

When Edelbrock Sr. passed away in 1962, Vic Edelbrock Jr. took the company reigns and kept Edelbrock at the forefront of the aftermarket industry during hot rodding’s first golden era of the 1960s and ’70s. Edelbrock Jr. served as President of SEMA from 1971-’74, and then helped expand the Edelbrock product line in the 1980s and ’90s. Today, world-famous Edelbrock engine parts can be found for virtually any American V8 engine, and the company offers carburetors, suspension components, and many other items, too.

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