Who Owns Edelbrock, And Where Are Its Carburetors Made?

If you've spent a significant amount of time around old gearheads or developed any familiarity with American muscle cars from the 1960s and '70s, you are no doubt familiar with the Edelbrock name and its familiar white script logo on a red background with a thick black border. Edelbrock built its brand making carburetors and intake manifolds, but its product line now includes fuel injection kits, camshafts and valve systems, turbo and superchargers, and even fully assembled crate engines.

Although we greying grease monkeys are a fading breed, most of us still regard Edelbrock as the company that brought us the Performer series of gas-chugging four-barrel carbs long before corporate average fuel economy standards and rising gas prices changed how we thought about our cars.

Edelbrock's corporate headquarters is located in Olive Branch, Mississippi, and the Perfomer series is still an integral part of its lineup, but where are these four-barrel beasts made today? 

The Edelbrock group's facilities are spread across the country: Headquarters and distribution are in Mississippi, the research and development center is in Cerritos, California, and the sand cast and mold foundries are in nearby San Jacinto. Edelbrock's carburetor division is located in Sanford, North Carolina, a little more than 40 miles southwest of Raleigh. The race division is in Mooresville, about a two hour's drive west of Sanford. In January 2020, The Industrial Opportunities Group, a private equity firm based in Chicago, purchased the Edelbrock group. 

The company's national presence reflects the intrepid spirit of founder Vic Edelbrock Sr., who was born in Kansas but moved to California in 1931 and opened a repair shop in Beverly Hills two years later. Vic raced his 1932 flathead Ford on the weekends and used the shop to fabricate performance parts for it. Vic made automotive history in September of 1941 when he set a land speed record of just over 121 mph in that same car. He issued his first catalog of performance parts five years later, but died from cancer in 1962, leaving the company in the hands of his then-26 year old son, Vic Jr. 

At the time, the company had just 10 employees. Three of them had been with Edelbrock since the beginning: Don Towle, Bobby Meeks, and Bob Bradford. "They stuck with me," Vic Jr. told Autoweek. Vic Jr. ran the company until his death in 2017.