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news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/breakingnews/crane022409.htm

"Crane Cams, a 56-year-old auto parts manufacturer, closed its doors this week and laid off its employees, a worker said today. "

This is sad. They were a big name in hi power engine parts for years. Another auto name gone.

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It really is sad to see Crane Cams go down the tubes. The saddest thing of all after reading the article is that the parent company took the tax payers for a ride for two years.

They didn't mind steeling money from the tax payers for two years by saying that they might move the business. When the tax breaks ended the employees of the company and the local and state tax payers got screwed.

The governing bodies that provided the parent company with the tax breaks, should be forced to pay back the money that they robed from the tax payers.

John F. Shireman

I met Harvey Crane in 1975 when he walked unannounced into my just started H-O Racing Specialties store front in Lawndale, CA. He was very gracious and distinguished looking gentleman. He wanted to know all about what I was doing with Pontiac high performance, which he had heard about from his Southern California factory representative.

We spent a couple of hours together, finally culminating in him personally setting up a Warehouse-Distributor arrangement for my fledgling business and private labeling 3 "custom" camshaft grinds explicitly for Pontiacs.

IIRC, Harvey was an admirer of the Pontiac Ram Air IV cam profile (308/320/0.520@1.65:1), which he claimed was one of the first computer designed profiles from GM. All the Malcom McKellar designs were hand done and had terrible high lift vibration.

It turns out that Harvey was fired from his own company in 1989 in order to "save money." So the company that just went out of business has nothing to do with Harvey.

Harvey apparently has his own part time consulting business, which is ongoing even today, at age 77.

Craig

I've heard of Crane and it is too bad they went out like they did but out of curiosity, did they have other products and how much of a market is there for that type item today?

Crane Cams made everything associated with valve trains. It was all first class, at least during the 1970s. I don't know about recently, but that market is very competitive and if your stuff breaks because of whatever, you will go down.

Craig

Crane Re-Opening?

autoweek.com/article/20090227/carnews/902279984

Today it was announced that the possible deal for Crane Cams didn't take place. The buyer was going to be Scorpion Performance.

Liqui Tech Industries is being contracted to sell off all of Crane Cams.


John F. Shireman