History Remembering Sparkomatic...

I think my generation saw the last of them, but most of my memories were of their cheap stereos. I had forgotten they made all these other things. I think I still have the old analog dial am/fm, cassette with 3 bar eq on the side somewhere.

 

I bought many of their add on kool looking goodies for my car . I think I still have an shifter around here someplace !

Retro Jim

 

I have an old sparkomatic shifter I found in the dump here in Hawaii ,still works.About 15 20 years ago we used to pass thier HQ building on the way to Macungie in Pa.

 

I had a three speed Sparkomatic shifter in my first car, a 67 Falcon, speed shifting was out, threads were striped and would pull the arm completly out in your hand...But I was cool, there was a FM adapter that pluged in the back of the factory AM radio.

 

I saw the Lectra-scope in a 56 Chevy at a swap meet once. All the wires running from under the hood to the unit was crazy!!!

 

I had one in my 51 Merc when I was 16 and managed to break the trans by getting it in two gears at once. Or at least the guy I let drive it did.

If you had one of those shifters you had to carry a prybar to pop the levers back in neutral so you could start over and hope you didn't break anything.

19.95 at ValueMart in 1962 and they gave me a discount as I didn't have enough cash on me and my shift tube in my Merc was broken.

 

I installed a Sparkomatic shifter in my 63 Fairlane sometime in 65. It worked OK, although being a less than talented mechanic, installed the levers upside down which reversed the pattern. Can't remember if I ever changed it before I put a top loader four speed in it out of a 69 Mustang. I did take the take some teeth off of the orginal three speed but blamed it on "cheap gears" since the 260 cubic engine didn't make that much power. I thought it looked OK, sort of a Hurst knockoff with a wooden handle. Thanks for the memory

 

In '65, after the shift collar in my '50 Merc coupe let go, I went to R&S Auto Stores and got the wood 'yo-yo' handle Spark-O-Matic shifter kit, chopped the required hole in the floor and bolted her up. This kit was adjustable, and quite sturdy, and it had a spring loaded selector pin so that you could shift from first to second by simply shoving the lever straight forward, and hit third by yanking it straight back. Worked flawless, and with some practice, you could shift that baby with your right foot and never have to dislodge your right arm from your sweetie sitting next to you.

BTW, how many of you codgers remember having your sweetie slid over sitting next to you, arm up around her shoulders, and maybe letting your arm 'wander' a bit....

 

In '66, one of my pals had a '60 Pontiac 2 door, 283, tall gears and LOUD pipes. He'd wind it out in second (till just before the valves floated) and back off. Boy, did we get the startled looks!!! He did it A LOT (along with a ton of speed shifts!) and that old Sparkomatic shifter wore like iron!

 

Found this ad while going through an old Hot Rod this afternoon:

 

I thought I was the only one with one of those ... mounted on the dash a person might think it was really a tach.

 

Was located in Milford PA. Now the building is Altec Lansing speakers. Back then Almquist was in same town and Ed Almquist was half owner

 

I bought a used Nova with a Sparkomatic stereo in it. It outlasted the car.

 

When I was 15, I helped clean up a yard after a new roof was put on the house. Used a 64-65 Chevy C10 pickup, moving around picking up the mess. It had one of the Sparkomatic shifters just like that in it, flat stick with the yo yo type knob. It wasn't tall enough for the truck, you had to kinda lean over to shift. It was cool to me though, all the manual trans vehicles I had ever driven had a column shift. Second gear was a little tricky, if you didn't hit it just right it would jump back into neutral.

 

Did not know they made anything other then the cheap stereos and speakers.

 

Here's a NOS auto floor shifter on sale now; and

A NOS manual shifter,


Or this one




Or this one


2 x NOS hubcaps maybe?

 

I purchased a Spark-a-Matic shifter for my 3 speed 49 Chevrolet back in the mid 60's
Here are a few of the old company decals from back in the day.
Jimbo

 

Now we know the secret to Moriarity's fast cars!

 

I had a Spark-O-Matic shifter in a 53 Ford pick up that I swapped in a Dodge hemi and 3 peed only shifter I could find for a select shift trans. A buddy had a Lectra scope in high school it would drive you nuts at night.

 

Good luck finding replacement NOS propellers for the Mini-Supercharger when the originals wear out.

 

In late 1967 when the slim Jim trans in my 61 Bonneville wouldn't take any more abuse from me I put in a 3 speed. Put a spark-o-matic shifter on it. I never had any trouble with it and it was much cheaper that a Hurst shifter

 

Thinking about where they might wind up when they did quickly swept away any thoughts of a purchase to try 'em out.

His fiberglass sports car bodies had my attention for a long time though. Like so many of my dreams I never could get the time and money required for a build together in the required combination.

Ed

 

Easy to make if you have the tools to do so.

 

a couple days ago i just gave my grandson a set of 6" triaxial speakers and a amp. he asked me where i got em from, i told him it was to long ago to remember. i guess i'm a little bit of a pack rat.

 

My high school car was a 56 Chevrolet (what else could it have been?). The 265 shattered a piston one day slowing down for a red traffic light. A neighborhood kid had a 57 Chevrolet, handed down to him from his parents; it had a cammed up 283 with a 3 speed (car originally had a Turboglide), and he just got tired of working on it. He sold it to me, and I swapped out the 265/Powerglide I had. The 3 speed had a Sparkomatic shifter on it, and to stop the levers on the transmission from slipping, he had them welded on (seems an awful lot of guys did that). The shifter was OK, the real problem was the Muncie 318 transmissions I kept breaking. Before I could put a "new" transmission in, I had to swap out the side cover with the welded on levers

. I can still smell the gear oil used back then! I am Butch/56sedandelivery.

 

My first shfter for my 57 chevy 3 speed was a Spark-o-Matic with the wood knob on either side of the shifter, It never worked well, made me save my pennies and buy a Hurst Mystery shifter and then a synchro lok

 

January 1958 new tachometer

Hello,

We have all grown up seeing plenty of advertisements for parts to be put in place inside and outside of our teenage hot rods. When we were in the market for a small tachometer for the new 1958 black Impala, we considered this new tach. The large, popular, chrome Sun tachometer was the most popular one for most everyone. We tried it on, under and on the side of the dash gauge arrangement, but everywhere we placed it, it blocked something, mainly the view.

So, we were looking for a smaller one that would not require drilling into the dash, or taking up so much of the sight lines. This Almquist 3 inch square tach was smaller than those big round Sun Tachometers. That was a possibility, except for the fact that we would have to drill a hole in the dash, facing the driver. There was no outside casing to allow a surface mount.

Jnaki

We continued our search and kept this small 3 inch gauge in the back of our mind. As the weeks rolled by we found a small, black, round aircraft tachometer with an internal light at our favorite Army Surplus Store in South Bixby Knolls. It was right around the corner from a small neighborhood, converted house, that was made into a speed shop. The small black tach even had a 1/2 round black casing to finish the custom install in an existing dash plate screw.

So, the old advertisement from Almquist was put away for awhile.
1960 a lower price for the same tachometer…

“Ed Almquist began Almquist Engineering, which turned out to be one of the largest mail order speed equipment businesses in the country. In 1954, Ed, with his partner, Jonas Anchel, turned Almquist Engineering into the Sparkomatic Corp.”

“In 1959, Ed and Jonas entered into a partnership with George Hurst and Bill Campbell, who were making engine conversion mounts and saw the need for an aftermarket floor shifter. Ed then came up with a fits-all universal mounting kit that helped dealers minimize inventory. Ed received two patents on the product. He was also the co-designer of the Hurst Shifter used in hundreds of hot rods.”

“In 1955, he bought Clearfield Plastics, an early manufacturer of fiberglass kit cars. In the years to follow, he produced a number of Almquist kits to fit different-size chassis. His first kits were made to fit the Crosley and Fiat Topolino automobiles. Ed sold Almquist Engineering and his half of Sparkomatic in 1966.”
1962


This floor shift kit was offered at many speed shops and large accessory stores like Pep Boys or mail order places like J.C. Whitney. My friend wanted a floor shift kit for his 1955 2 door post Chevy sedan. We had just made one for an automatic Pontiac Sedan and now we started on the stick shift version. But, the design/build was taking too long, so the friend's dad bought him a ready made version, locally and we installed it in one day. It was a High School Auto Shop assignment and grade for the installation.