My thanks to Charles(Sealed Power) for resizing these pics so I could share them with you. I picked this up in Elsik's Auto Parts in Pasadena TX in the mid-70s. They had dozens and dozens of Smithy's, both steel and glass packs, Hollywood Tru-tones, and several other old-line accessory hotrod mufflers in the store room at that time. Nonbody much cared at that time so they disappeared into the void. The decal shows a 57 Corvette and read ECONOMY on the left, PERFORMANCE across the bottom and COMPETITION on the right. The Smithy's trademark crooked muffler is at the top. The decal was bright yellow background with deep blue oval outline, logo and drawings with silver accents. A shame no one has ever remade the decals, I've never even seen one for sale, although I'm sure one came with each steel-pack sold, wouldn't you think?
Very interesting. I have a set that are going on the Hel Camino... I've never opened the boxes but I doubt I have a fancy sticker in there...
Those would have to be old production genuine Smithy's to possibly have the decals(water-activated) rather than stickers.
Before Dave Mitchell, all aftermarket Hollywood type mufflers were steel packed. Whitney sold "gutted" mufflers for that "motorboat" sound. I've seen reference to "mica packed" but these must have been made in the '30s or '40s. Al Drake wrote of "the short-lived Rajax'' - often wondered if this meant they didn't stay on the market long, or didn't last on a car ... The open chamber in front of the packing is the design feature that gave the original steelpacks that deep, mellow burble & deceleration rap missing from today's mufflers.
That's an incredibly cool display, and it gives me an idea for the baffles in my side pipes. Thanks for sharing, I always wanted to save some of that cool stuff, but some other lucky soul got there first!
Cool - thanks for sharing! This one would rap pretty good, it's so short. Haven't seen louvers like this on any other muffler. The larger chamber that's visible is towards the rear. There should be a shorter chamber up front as well, just like the new repros, which use fiberglass and have different louvers. Sounds different when reversed. I still got my 22" Smithy's I replaced with Brockman's 17" steelpacks. I should repack them with shavings from the machine shop one of these days and make them a little shorter.
No problem, I'm happy to help out! That display is COOL! Here are a couple that I have. One is a flowmaster muffler not nearly as old as Your Smithy's but still kinda neat. Friend of mine gave it to me when he closed his muffler shop. The other one is an edlebrock manifold with the top half cut off and hinged in place so that you can see inside the runners. It's pretty cool to. I love cutaway displays like these. It's nice to be able to see inside the stuff and get a better idea of how it works. Thanks again for the pictures.
Rumor has it they use to go around to the machine shops and get all the left over metal shavings from the lathes and fill the packs then switched to glass later on down the road??
The Smithy's cutaway display is 12" overall, with a 2" pipe and a 10" case. The open chamber is 2 1/4". The decal measure 3 1/4"H X 5" W.
Now that's interesting. And now I know why the paint is burned away on the first two inches of my Smithy's. and also to a lesser amount at the rear. These are from Speedway, maybe early 90's. Thanks. Frank
I bought a nos, real 50`s smithy`s muffler in the 80`s god it was heavy, three or four time`s the one`s they sell today. that`s a neat piece of shop art ya got there ! lucifr .I bet that one I bought was full of those metal shavings.
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