Wilcap Co.
Wilcap Products & Sharp Equipment Divisions.
P.O. Box Box 763 Pismo Beach CA 93448 (805) 481-7639 Fax 343-5000
HISTORY
Tony Capanna
As a youngster growing up in Southern California, Tony
got involved in going fast early. His first cars included the 16 Cylinder
Marmon Roadster and Hudson straight 8 roadster that set records at the lakes.
After returning from Pearl Harbor in 1945, where he worked in the naval
yards as a welder and machinist, he married Ora and bought a Kerrny-Trecker
Horizontal mill and opened up a welding and machine shop in San Pedro. He
was making parts for various other hot rod equipment manufacturers and assembling
the engines for the Powell motor scooters when, along with Red Wilson, he
started Wil-Cap and they began making their own parts. By 1948 he was selling
engine to transmission adapters to customers all over the U.S.
Tony Capanna 16 cylinder Marmon Roadster
Though he had always experimented with different fuels,
pitric acid, straight ether, benzine, nitro and methanol, in the late 40's
he took a college chemistry course and got serious about alternative fuels
and using them in internal combustion engines. The story was that he walked
into the classroom and told the instructor that he didn't care about the
grade, as long as he learned something. Pretty soon he had the reputation
for blending the hottest fuel around. The Dyno soon followed and with it
a steady stream of hot rodders, engine builders, cam makers, and other assorted
types ready to do their best to peg the needle.
1955 was the year that he took the Dodge engine to Indianapolis.
While that car, nor the Desoto in 1958, ever qualified, it was an assault
on the dominance of purpose-built racing engines and made people take notice.
1957 saw the car "Suddenly" blow away the competition at Dayton
with a engine Tony built.
1958 Tony bought 1.2 acres on Sepulveda Boulevard in Torrance
California that became Hot Rod City. By 1964 there were about 15,000 sq.
ft of industrial rentals filled with various types of auto shops. By 1967
the Wilcap Company catalog was 14 pages of flywheels, adapters, engine hardware
and Hot Rod City Racing
Fuel. By then Tony and Ora had 6 children and Tony
had wisely invested in various pieces of Southern California real estate.
His racing and hot rodding days were long past but he never lost interest
in engines.
In the late sixties Tony began
looking at fuel economy. Like most things he did, he studied extensively
and came to the conclusion that the answer lay in the diesel engine. By
1974 he was busy doing diesel engine swaps into Dodge Darts and Ford Pintos.
The big Dodge got 42+ mpg and the Pinto achieved 50 mpg. Another conversion
was to the Dodge and Chevy 1/2 ton trucks. In 1974 Wilcap entered the "Reduced
Emissions Rallye" With a Dodge Dart powered by a Nissan Diesel and
sponsored another entry, a Pinto with a diesel, by the Southern California
Regional Occupational Center. The other entries were from such places as
Cal Tech, General Motors Institute, UC Davis, Cal Poly and Northrop Institute.
The overall winner was the UCLA hydrogen powered car, followed by the Wilcap
diesel. The weight of emissions in the judging was heavy and so it was biased
towards the hydrogen car, but in the Performance and Fuel Economy testing
the Wilcap car and the Wilcap sponsored car beat the nearest competitor
by more than 15%
Now, looking back, I wonder how much longer would the
Pinto model been around if the fuel tank was filled with safer diesel fuel
and would Chrysler have been in better financial shape in 1980 if they began
putting diesel motors in their light trucks in 1970. One of my favorite
stories from that period was about how he and the crew from Wilcap went
to a ASE meeting on fuel economy. They sat and listened to the speaker talk
all about the glories and promise of the hydrogen/gas hybrid powered car.
The engineer spoke about the great potential and envisioned that after 10
years, may slightly more, of work and millions of tax payer dollars they
could have a car that might get 35 mpg. The three of them had driven diesel
powered cars to the meeting and the worst of them got 50 mpg.
In the early 1980's Tony began work on the building that
currently houses Wilcap in rural Arroyo Grande. He and his sons, Lloyd and
Mike, would drive the three to four hours on Thursday or Friday night and
work all weekend then head back to Los Angeles late Sunday or early Monday.
Finally Hot Rod City was sold to the Torrance YMCA and in 2001 was torn
down.
In the mid 80's Tony moved to the Arroyo Grande area.
Although the he was still producing the Wilcap product line, more and more
he needed help keeping up. In 1994 his son Lloyd began helping. By 1998
Lloyd was working at Wilcap full time and they purchased the Sharp brand
from Al Sharp and began producing the famous Sharp heads and manifolds for
the Ford flathead. In 1999 they purchased a brand new Cincinnati Arrow 1250c
vertical machining center. While Lloyd and Tonys grandchildren, Mateo, Quinn,
and Tony Capanna and Mike and Tim McNeil worked in the shop, Tony, age 79,
began a new project. He had transplanted a 4 cylinder diesel into a Suzuki
Swift body with the idea of maximizing fuel economy. In the end, the car
achieved 99 mpg and was drivable!
2001 was a tragic year for the Capanna family. In early
September, Lloyd died suddenly. Everybody in the family was devastated.
Tony, who had been battling cancer, was heart broke. On September 20, 2001,
he passed away, his faith in God and the love for his family never shaken
despite all of his ordeals.
Although Tony had insight and ingenuity, he had several
character traits that always kept him from becoming more well know than
he did. He was honest. This led to him pointing out the baloney when he
saw it and he wouldn't waste time with some one who didn't know what they
were talking about. This tended to give him the reputation for being short
with people. However, if you did put some time and effort into doing the
leg work and research and had an intelligent question, he would be more
than happy to talk to you. Another personality trait that served him well
was his skepticism. He was someone who had to see it for himself to believe
it. The wrong answer with him was "because it always been done that
way". But most of all he was not a self-promoter. He never sought recognition
and would never take credit undeservedly. When he was the very first inductee
into the Dry Lakes Racing Hall of Fame he was so shocked he was moved to
tears.
Though he may have been a hard worker and had many projects
and interests, his family always came first. Of all of his accomplishments
and achievements, I think he was proudest, and deservedly so, of his family.
Red (Guy Curtis) Wilson
Very little is written down about Red but those that knew
him still have vivid memories of him 40 years after his death. He was a
character that loved living. He a had a great sense of humor. He had his
hand in many of the early speed equipment companies; After leaving Wil-Cap
he took over Clay Smith Cams after Clay was killed in a pit lane accident,
started KW Products with Lyle Knudsen, and helped Willy Garner get Trans-Dapt
started.
His lifes' ambition was to be the US American Power Boat
Champion, which he did three years in a row. In the early 60's he was diagnosed
with skin cancer. Mike Kelly, who worked for Wil-Cap in the late fifties,
tells the story this way;
"Red was told by three doctors that he would probably
not live more than six months. The doctors told him the cancer was in advanced
stage. When the three doctors gave him their prognostication Red stood up,
took a cigar out of his shirt pocket ,lit it, blew smoke in the faces of
the doctors and said: @*%* you guys; I ain't dying until I get ready to
. Such was the outlook of Red Wilson with regard to
most everything."
He lost his life in an accident while racing his E Class
boat at the Long Beach Marine Stadium in 1965. If he had lived longer, there
is no doubt he would become one of the well known legends. As it is he is
a legend to those who knew him.
Al Sharp
Innovator, businessman, WWII Vet,, machinist, pattern
maker, a guy who loved to make things that make you go faster. Like many
other pioneers he had his hand in a lot of different things.
He moved to Southern California from Oklahoma with his
family in the 30's. They settled in the Los Angeles area and Al started
working in shops and garages. He was apprenticed as a pattern makers helper
when the war broke out. He joined the Navy and went to the South Pacific
as a Foundrymans Assistant. He already had more experience and knew more
than the men that he was under.
The best WWII story Al told me was about when he was on
Guam and a destroyer hit a reef and broke off one blade on its' propeller.
At that time they were cast in bronze and this one was about 12'' in diameter.
The plan was to build a pattern and cast a new prop. All of that would have
taken several days. Al convinced the skeptical officers that he could repair
the prop and they let him try. He molded a box around the break, jigged
the prop up at an angle, and poured the bronze. The key was to figure out
the gating and runners and how to cool it after the pour. When the mold
was taken off the Al's CO didn't believe that the repair would hold. Al
bet him a weeks pay that he couldn't break it and pretty soon he was swinging
an sledge hammer as hard as he could on the end of the blade. When the first
guy wore himself out swinging at it a second one took a turn. Despite their
best efforts, the repair held and Al won the bet.
Al got out of the Navy in 1945 and went to back to work
as a pattern maker in L.A. where he ran into Gordon Pilkington and they
decided to start a shop together, SP Products. They did a lot of work for
different companies around L.A., including some of the early speed equipment
makers. Soon a lot of the racers were coming directly to Al to design parts
for their particular cars. Rathman, Chrisman, and others had Al build custom
parts for their cars. A lot of these parts became the foundation for the
Sharp Speed and Power Equipment parts.
1963 introduction of Aluminum Hemi Heads
Aside from the flathead equipment, he built parts for
just about every motor that came down the strip. His manifolds and valve
covers graced the mills of the famous Hurst Hairy Olds twin engine car and
he helped Craig Breedlove with the Spirit of America record setting run.
He and Gene Mooneyham built and sold some of the first aluminum heads for
the Chrysler Hemi. He had a reputation for being willing and able to do
just about any part quickly. He was a good pattern maker and designer and
could spot the best solution to a problem quickly and would stick to a problem
until it was solved. Most of all Al liked the problem solving. One of the
stories he told me was about the Chrisman Coupe. Art and Lloyd and Al were
at Bonneville with the flatmotor in the car and it would swap steering over
100 mph. Al went to town and got a couple of washing machine tops and bolted
them to the front wheels and fixed the problem. Today the car in the museum
has a couple of nice spun aluminum wheel covers on it. Another one was the
safety hub for the early Ford axles. After an accident at the track where
a wheel came off and went into the stands, Al decided that something had
to be done and he built the hub. Now it's likely some one else would eventually
have come up with the idea or some other fix, but Al went out and did it
right away. There is no way of knowing how many lives that one little invention
saved. Even though Al could be blunt, stubborn and was known to hold a grudge,
he liked to have fun. Hot rods and making stuff were fun for Al. He was
just finishing a 51 Ford truck for his daughter and had done some more work
on the SP carb top pattern. Last year he was at the Hot Rod Reunion and
had a blast. Al passed away on September 16, 2004 after a brief stay in
the hospital.
Currently
The purchase of the Wilcap Company and all of the associated
trade and brand names was completed in November of 2002. We are committed
to continuing the tradition that the Wilcap and Sharp companies have for
producing excellent and innovative products. We will never let the memory
of the men who began this endeavor fade and we will make every attempt to
live up to the standards they set.
Sincerely,
Patrick McGuire,
Owner, Wilcap Company
I know there are a lot of you who have memories of Tony,
Red, Al, Wilcap, Sharp, Hot Rod City, etc. Please send them to me at the
email address below. I will add to this site as I am able. Thanks for looking.
Wilcap Company
P.O. Box 763 Pismo Beach CA 93448
(805) 481-7639
FAX (805) 343-5000
NOTE; Please Put "Wilcap" or "Sharp"
in subject line of email