Cragar started in the days of pre-war auto racing and hot-rodding.

American motor sports came alive in the late 1920s. American-built Duesenbergs and Millers were as good as anything coming from England, Germany, France or Italy. The Millers, which were built in Los Angeles, had 91-cubic-inch supercharged engines, and were capable of 140 mph. Miller's designer, Leo Goossen, had created exotic cylinder heads for the stock Ford Model A 4-cylinder. The combination made the engine far more powerful and the engine of choice for racers. But successful as the cars were, the Great Depression forced Miller to close down by 1930.

At this same time in Los Angeles, a wealthy auto enthusiast named Crane Gartz, -- heir to the Crane Publishing fortune -- partnered with racing star Harlan Fengler. The two formed Cragar Corporation, Ltd, located in Hollywood, California. The name Cragar is comprised of the first three letters of Crane Gartz’s first and last name.

Newly formed Cragar bought the tooling, machinery, and patterns for the Miller/Goossen heads, and created the same overhead valve version under the Cragar name. These new heads, coupled with a Winfield carburetor, more than doubled the existing horsepower from 41 to 86 hp at 3200 rpm. They were an instant hit with racers.

During this period in Los Angeles, a man named George Wight owned a small salvage yard. Named Bell Auto Parts, it became the first performance aftermarket parts store in America. This store, located in the Los Angeles suburb of Bell, California, served as the high-performance mecca for hot rodders, sports-car nuts, round trackers, dry lakes racers, and street speeders. Like Cragar, Bell Auto Parts had also begun to manufacture a small inventory of racing upgrade parts: Model A intake and exhaust manifolds, valve covers, side plates, and magnetos. But despite Cragar’s early successes, the company could not withstand the effects of the Depression. Gartz and Fengler’s enterprise came to an end 1932.

The news came to the attention of George Wight, whose Bell Auto Parts was now making a modest profit. Wight saw the potential of Cragar’s speed parts and so he went into heavy into debt to acquire the patterns and fixtures from the defunct company. It was a good business decision because the Cragar cylinder head soon became Bell Auto Part’s top product.

Enter a youth named Roy Richter from nearby Maywood, California. Richter started showing a talent for pattern making, metal fabrication, and talented driving of race cars at local Southern California speed events -- places such as at Muroc, Rosamond, and El Mirage dry lake bed. Young Richter worked out of a small corner of Bell Auto Parts, where he built his seriously competitive Saxon powered (Model A engine with smaller displacement) midget racer.

In 1943, George Wight died. The former junk dealer, who created Bell Auto Parts, left little behind: a modest bungalow, the shop, a small inventory of parts, and miscellaneous machine tools. Two years later, Roy Richter liquidated most of his belongings to lease Bell Auto Parts, and its modest inventory -- including those with the Cragar name -- from Wight’s widow. The timing was right for the investment: 1945 brought an end to World War II, where a returning military was released into a safe and predictable civilian world. These returning veterans, many of whom were used to high-performance machinery and/or living on the edge of disaster, returned with a need for excitement. In short time, competitive gatherings started happening at speedways, dry lake beds, road courses, and on city streets with illegal one-on-one races, soon coined “drag racing.”

For Richter, and Bell Auto Parts, sales of "speed parts" and "hop-up equipment" soared. (Note, besides Roy Richter and Bell Auto Parts/Cragar, similar stories were beginning across Southern California with men like Vic Edelbrock Sr., Phil Weiand, Ed Iskenderian, Stu Hillborn, and Phil Remington. In 1946 Bell Auto Parts published the first-ever mail-order catalog in the speed industry, soon to contain more than 10,000 items.

By 1950 the racing scene and Bell Auto Parts was gathering serious momentum. The company grew into a larger manufacturing facility in Long Beach, where Roy Richter developed his innovate Bell safety helmets, and the Cragar high-performance accessory line, including steering wheels, intakes, ignition, exhaust, and these two notable milestones: .

The Cragar supercharger kit, according to Hot Rod magazine, "is considered to be one of the 'Twenty speed parts' that changed the world of hot rodding." Quote from Hot Rod

Originally developed for industrial diesels in the '30s, the 71-series GMC Roots-style superchargers were adopted by hot rodders in the late '40s. But it was the 1959 introduction of the first complete and widely marketed street-oriented blower kit for the then-relatively new small-block Chevy V-8 by Cragar that made Roots blowers practical for the average hot rodder.

The Cragar S/S custom wheel came out of necessity. For years, the custom wheel business had been dominated by the "deep dish" chrome steel wheel -- nothing more than a stock wheel reversed to provide greater offset. Ted Halibrand, another veteran Southern California racer and hot rodder, had developed a lightweight sand-casted magnesium wheel for racing applications, and by 1960 a number of small companies were producing "mag" wheels for the street, but they were nothing more than polished, cast-aluminum centers riveted to chromed steel rims. Richter decided to try and manufacture an affordable high-quality wheel of his own. He would sell it under the Cragar name. Seeking both rigidity and good looks, he spent two years designing and testing what was to become the famous Cragar S/S wheel.

The Cragar S/S featured a breakthrough in materials and manufacturing techniques. Richter patented a process whereby the steel rim was attached to the aluminum alloy center by pressure casting. Although no rivets or screws were used, the design resisted a force of 42,000 pounds before the center separated from the rim-a figure more than 50 percent higher than that of the competition. And although intended for street use, Richter's wheel was quickly employed on various racing cars with impressive results.

The S/S was a resounding success. Soon after its introduction Richter had to open new plants in nearby Bell Gardens, then a larger facility in South Gate, and finally to an elaborate factory in Compton. Soon thousands of Cragar S/S were selling to J.C. Penny, BFGoodrich, and Goodyear. By 1971, Richter's speed shop was employing 500 people and generating $31 million in annual sales. Cragar wheels -- and the copies they would engender -- sold in the tens of millions. They became one of the most popular, most imitated, and most successful custom wheels in history.

As important as parts, Cragar helped start SEMA -- an organization to help regulate them. In 1963, SEMA (originally the Speed Equipment Manufacturer's Association) had a goal to govern quality and business ethics in the nascent speed-equipment business. Richter and Cragar remained very active with SEMA until his health started to fail. In 1971, poor health prompted Richter to sell his holdings in Bell Helmets and Cragar Industries to the Wynn Oil Company. Roy Richter died in July 1983. He was 69-year-old.

Today the CRAGAR® brand is a registered trademark of Cragar Industries, Phoenix, Arizona. Cragar Industries still offers the Cragar S/S wheel designs, along with other aftermarket parts such as performance exhaust, brakes, suspension, etc., and its own Special Edition vehicles sold through new car dealers.

Note: A recreation of the famed Bell Auto Parts store can be seen at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, California.