UNRELENTING KEN DUTTWEILER AND HIS LIFELONG QUEST FOR HORSEPOWER

In the horsepower game, whether it be for racing or just street cars, there are hundreds of engine builders.

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In reality, though, most of these people should actually be called engine assemblers. That's because the term “engine builder” has been thoroughly abused. However, Kenny Duttweiler is one man who can rightly lay claim to that title.

If you've read these pages for more than a few years, his name has likely crossed your path. Today, he's best known for constructing among the most powerful internal combustion engines on the planet, which have powered the now-famous Speed Demon blown fuel streamliner to more records and more runs above 400 mph at Bonneville than any car in history.

Duttweiler is also fully vested in his eighth decade of playing with cars and engines with absolutely no thought to taking it easy. “I'm really not a cruise ship kinda guy,” he told this author back in 2011, and now 14 years later, he is just as sharp as ever. His most current Bonneville speed records attest to that fact. The heat that all these engines produce seems to have also infused a little of that energy right back into the man.

The Duttweiler story traces back much further than just Bonneville, and it has embraced a broad spectrum of engines, fuel, and sanctioning bodies. You will have to search long and hard to find a builder who has more experience with a more expansive array of engines than the man who operates out of an unassuming little shop just far enough away from the bright lights of Los Angeles.

All this started way back in the early '60s with an affliction for cars and engines in high school and working for his father in an automotive repair shop in the same alleyway where his current shop now stands. “It all started here. I’ve been in this driveway since 1970.”