His name adorned the sides of Indy cars and stock cars. Top Fuel dragsters flew across the finish line, his technology pounding into their supercharged Hemi engines. At the Bonneville Salt Flats, Isky was the invisible hand that propelled speed legends like Mickey Thompson to record speeds. Ed “Isky” Iskenderian earned his nickname “The Camfather” through performance-enhancing camshaft designs and brilliant marketing campaigns that brought the thrill and skill of a Richard Petty Daytona lap or a Don Garlits quarter-mile to every kid building a souped-up car in his own garage. His influence can be felt in every form of motorsport today, and Isky lived long enough to enjoy the changing landscape of the industry he helped pioneer.
Today we say goodbye to Ed Iskenderian, who passed away on February 4, 2026 at the impressive age of 104 years old.
Iskenderian was born on July 10, 1921 in Tulare County, California. He was the son of immigrants from Armenia and remained proud of his heritage throughout his life. He asked everyone with dark hair and dark eyes if they were also Armenian, and if not, he gently reassured them with a joke: “Well, that’s fine too.”
California was a hotbed of hot rodding, and Isky quickly fell in love with the custom Model Ts he saw the older kids in the neighborhood tinkering with. He built his first car when he was a teenager, and he would later race that roadster on the dry lake beds around Los Angeles, reaching speeds of over 120 mph.
Isky was a patriot and served in the United States Air Force during World War II. He often joked that he wanted to be a pilot but wasn’t handsome enough, a perfect example of the self-deprecating but always good-natured humor that characterized his attitude to the world.
Returning to California after the war, Isky purchased a cam grinder and began working on re-profiling camshafts in the pursuit of more power, higher RPMs and better fuel management. His cameras began to attract the attention of stock car racers and drag racers, and Isky soon saw the marketing opportunities in sponsorship and merchandising with names like Richard Petty, Don Garlits, Don Prudhomme and Jim Clark. He would provide cameras for leading racers in every form of American motorsports, from boats to land speed.
Are advertisements in Hot rod And Car craft were funny and provocative, making fun of competitors and coining quick-sounding phrases like “the five-wheeled camera.” Isky is also recognized by many in the automotive industry as the inventor of the graphic T-shirt, offering racers and friends white T’s printed with the Isky logo, long before such clothing became the established uniform of cool teenagers around the world.
Iskenderian not only dressed up the automotive industry, he helped legitimize and expand it, as a founding member of the Speed Equipment Manufacturers Association (now SEMA, which stands for Specialty Equipment Market Association).
Even if you’ve never shopped for lifters and pushrods for your own build, someone close to you has had the thrill of a bigger dyno number or a sweet jerky idle after switching to an Isky cam. Even the performance departments of today’s OEM manufacturers owe a hat tip to Isky for his enthusiastic pursuit of better running engines and new speed records.
Ed Iskenderian is survived by his children, Richard, Timothy and Amy; eight grandchildren; his brother Ben; his company, Isky Racing Cams; and an extended family of sponsored racers, builders and friends.
As a dormant agent activated late in the game, Elana Scherr didn’t know her calling at a young age. Like many girls, she planned to become a veterinarian-astronaut-artist, the closest she came to the latter by attending UCLA art school. She painted pictures of cars, but did not own any. Elana reluctantly got a driver’s license at age 21 and discovered that not only did she love cars and want to drive them, but other people loved cars and wanted to read about them, which meant someone had to write about them. Since receiving activation codes, Elana has written for numerous car magazines and websites, covering classics, car culture, technology, motorsports and new car reviews. In 2020, she received a Best Feature Award from the Motor Press Guild for the film CD story “A ride through classic Americana in a Polestar 2.” In 2023, her Car and driver cover story “In Washington, DC’s Secret Carpool Cabal, It’s a Daily Slug Fest” was awarded 1st place by the Los Angeles Press Club at the 16th annual National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards.
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