TA2 - Where It All Began

In 1971, Ed Howe left his day job to start a business called Ed Howe Racing. In those early days, the thought of selling their race cars was not part of the plan.

It took the foresight and persuasion from Hoosier Racing Tire founder Bob Newton, to finally convince Ed of the demand for his products.

By 1974, the company was incorpo- rated as Howe Racing Enterprises Inc The orders came flooding in and the workshop was soon backlogged with car orders.

Dick Knotts purchased the first car from Howe Racing for his son Rick.

Twelve months later a newspaper article a in the Grand Rapids Press reported that Howe had produced some 83 chassis in those early months of operation.

The small, four-person business looked for innovative ways to meet customer demand and thus began selling unassembled or kit cars, as a cheaper alternative to complete factory builds.

The kits were distributed to dealers around the country, several of which later became independent chassis builders such as Dillon, Port City, Lefthander, Randercar, Tri-City Buggy, Hanley, and Hamke.

There is no physical record of the number of kit chassis produced.

The peak year for Howe in chassis production peaked in 1982 with 170 exampled of the fifth design chassis produced across the calendar year.

In total 762 fifth design cars were built, which remains the greatest volume for any of the Howe designs though to 2022, though the current Camaro Cup / TA2 style chassis is on course to surpass that number by 2023.Ed’s son Chas Howe took charge over the recording of serial numbers in 1987 from chassis number 10687 for J&H Automotive in Massilon, Ohio.

The serial numbers at the point bore some recognition to the year of manufacture. As production numbers continued to rise, Howe looked to modify the process.

The last serial number with manufacture year indicated within the number was 05009, a Camaro Cup car for Performance Automotive in Sweden.

In 2010 Howe changed to sequential numbers preceded by an “H.”