Herbrand Tools "The official tool supplier to the Indianapolis 500-mile race"

 Herbrand Tools

"The official tool supplier to the

Indianapolis 500-mile race" 

Tool sponsorship of the Indianapolis 500-mile race is not well-documented, even by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway itself. The tool sponsorship by the Herbrand Company appears a few years after Anton ‘Tony’ Hulman purchased the track in 1946.

According to the reference book Twentieth Century History of Sandusky County, Ohio and Representative Citizens, inventor Jacob Herbrand and local businessmen Charles Thompson and JB Van Doren founded the Herbrand Company in 1881 in the north central Ohio town of Fremont to manufacture and sell carriage parts.  

Herbrand patent

Jacob Herbrand held several patents for drop forged parts for carriages; which included a drop perch, and running gear, with his final patent for improvements in vehicle springs, issued after Jacob’s death in 1884.  By 1909, the company’s line of products included a variety of carriage forgings, bicycle wrenches and a safety razor manufactured under the Henry Leach patent.

By 1911, Herbrand added pliers to their tool lineup and the 1914 Automobile Trade Directory listed Herbrand as a manufacturer of screwdrivers. Herbrand further expanded their tool offerings and began production of drop-forged tools for automobile tool kits. 

In 1915 Herbrand expanded their factory and adopted a three-shift work schedule to keep up with the demand for tool kits for the Ford Motor Company. Herbrand, which advertised as “the Aristocrat of Tools,” eventually occupied a huge block-long multi-structure factory site at the corner of Napoleon and Stone Streets in Fremont Ohio.

In 1919 Herbrand began to use the "Van-Chrome" trademarked brand name for their line of alloy steel tools. Over the next twenty years Herbrand continued to expand their line of tools and supplier to high-volume retailers such as Western Auto Supply and Montgomery Ward with brand names "Van-Chrome" and "Multi-hex." In 1935, the American Machinist magazine reported that the Herbrand Company entered receivership, but after several months it emerged as the Herbrand Corporation. 

The Corporation moved away from high-volume contract manufacturing for the consumer market and focused on the high-end professional tool market and expanded their tool line to include a full range of automotive service tools, including sockets and drive tools, a wide variety of wrenches, pliers, gear pullers, and a large number of specialty tools.

Meanwhile in November 1945, Terre Haute Indiana grocery supply heir Tony Hulman bought the Indianapolis Motor Speedway from Eddie Rickenbacker for $750,000 and set to work with the Hulman & Company team to refurbish the facility for the first postwar 500-mile on May 30 1946.  

The July 2, 1947 edition of The Sandusky Register newspaper reported the formal merger of Herbrand Corporation and the Bingham Stamping Company of Toledo, Ohio.  Just over a month later, on August 21, 1947, the company stockholders voted to formally change the company name to the Bingham-Herbrand Corporation with the Fremont plant known as the Herbrand Forging Division.

This photo from the IUPUI University Library Center
for Digital Studies Indianapolis Motor Speedway collection, 
shows Johnnie Parsons (left) and his chief mechanic Harry Stephens
 posed with a Herbrand tool box studying a tool 

Herbrand tools first appeared as a sponsor at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1950. As the result of his victory in the rain-shortened 500-mile race, Johnnie Parsons driver of the winning Kurtis-Kraft ‘Wynn’s Friction Proofing Special’ won a set of Herbrand Tools, $57,458.63 in prize money, the Mercury Pace Car, free meals for a year at the Wheeler Catering Company a registered cocker spaniel puppy and year’s supply of Ideal Dog Food the latter two items supplied by Wilson & Company.  

This poor quality photo from the IUPUI University Library Center for Digital Studies Indianapolis Motor Speedway collection, 
shows Harry Stephens, left, posed with a Herbrand tool box 

Harry Stephens, the car’s chief mechanic who according to legend, discovered a crack in the car’s Offenhauser engine block on race morning, also won a set of Herbrand tools and the Sergeant Edward Stomper Memorial Trophy. Mrs. Evelyn Stomper of Chicago donated the 33-inch tall gold trophy in 1946 in memory of her husband, one of 3,504 servicemen who lost their lives in action during the World War Two invasion of the Philippine Island of Leyte.    

In 1951, stock in the Bingham-Herbrand Corporation sold for $1.76 a share as sales were up 47% and the company’s net income increased 35% over 1950. 

In 1951 Bingham-Herbrand expanded even more through a teaming arrangement with the Studebaker Corporation to manufacture aircraft jet engine parts.  Execution of the full contract would have meant that Bingham-Herbrand needed to add five hundred more employees but the end of hostilities in Korea in July 1953 meant the new facility, specifically built never opened, and resulted in a major loss for the company.    

Popular Mechanics ad 

The July 1951 issue of Popular Mechanics magazine advertised with a quote from Speedway President Wilbur Shaw that Herbrand Tools was the “Official Tool Supplier of the Indianapolis 500-mile race.” At the Victory Banquet held in the Riley Room of the Claypool Hotel on May 31, George Salih, the chief mechanic of the 1951 ‘500’ winning car, the #99 241-cubic inch Offenhauser-powered Kurtis-Kraft chassis owned by Murrell Belanger, took home a chest full of Herbrand Tools and the Stomper Trophy. 

The 1951 Indianapolis 500-mile race winner Lee Wallard, the “Cinderella Man” received a matching set of Herbrand tools and tool chest along with the John W Hobbs trophy (as the leader at 250 miles), the Borg-Warner trophy, and a check for $63,612.12.  

Sadly, just three days later, Wallard received severe burns when a borrowed ‘big car’ caught fire in a race at Reading Pennsylvania. Wallard underwent 37 skin grafts while hospitalized for 121 days and his injuries ended his racing career.

For the 1952 Indianapolis ‘500’ the Bingham-Herbrand Corporation subscribed to the Indianapolis Citizens Speedway Committee’s leader lap prize fund, as the sponsored five laps at $100 apiece.  In addition to the publicity, representatives of the company received practice day Garage Area passes for the month of May and Race Day access to the Pagoda.  

This poor quality photo from the IUPUI University Library Center for Digital Studies Indianapolis Motor Speedway collection,
shows JC Agajanian (left) and Troy Ruttman (right) posed with a Herbrand tool box. That may be Clay Smith in the middle.   

The author was unable to find any press references to Herbrand tools as the official tool supplier or that tools were awarded to the 1952 race winner, but the author did find proof. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway archive contains a grainy 1952 photograph that shows the winning car owner JC Agajanian and 1952 Indianapolis ‘500’ champion Troy Ruttman posed with a Herbrand Tool box.

The Herbrand Division staged a contest in conjunction with the 1952 500-mile race, in which entrants filled out a form to guess the winning speed of the race. The winner received a $500 Royal Deluxe Herbrand Rollway and Deluxe Magic Chest filled with the master mechanic tool set. Second place received a $200 fully stocked Herbrand Master Rollway while third, fourth, and fifth finishers in the contest each received a complete master mechanic tool set in a MC-3 Magic Tool Chest, said to be worth $100.  We’ll leave to the reader’s imaginations what similar prizes would be worth today.

For the 1952 Holiday season, Herbrand advertisements suggested readers “be practical this year and give a Herbrand Tool gift certificate. They are available in any denomination you chose and the man who gets one of these wonderful gifts can use the certificate in payment for Herbrand Tools of his own selection.”  

For the 1953 Indianapolis ‘500,’  Herbrand again paid for five laps of sponsorship at the new amount of $150 each while the Ford Motor Company led all lap prize sponsors with seven laps subscribed. As in previous years, Herbrand awarded two sets of tools valued at $275 per set for the race winning driver and mechanic. 

This  photo from the IUPUI University Library Center for Digital Studies Indianapolis Motor Speedway collection
shows Bill Vukovich (center) and his wife Esther and their crew posed with a Herbrand tool box 

After he appeared earlier in the day and drove the pace car at the AAA ‘big car’ event at the Winchester Speedway, 1953 Indianapolis ‘500’ winner Bill Vukovich received the Herbrand tools, the keys to the Ford Sunliner convertible Pace Car, and a check for $89,496.98, $29,500 of which were lap prizes. 

Vukovich won his second set of tools in 1954, and was on his way to a third victory in 1955 when he crashed Lindsay Hopkins’ Kurtis 500 C and perished on his 56^th lap. Bob Sweikert won the ‘500’ and the Herbrand Tool chests for himself and his young mechanic AJ Watson. The tool chests came in handy for storing another of their prizes, a set of Kramer Cam-Lok roller ratchet wrenches for use of tube fittings.   

After Wilbur Shaw’s death in a plane crash in October 1954, in January 1956, the Novi Equipment Company in Indianapolis advertised the sale of Shaw’s tool collection that included “Herbrand tool sets, chests and assorted Herbrand tools” offered at “low prices.”  

In its pre-race coverage on May 29, 1956, the Indianapolis News published an article that highlighted recent Herbrand innovations at the Speedway. In an interview with representative Ralph Little and engineering supervisor Howard Greer in the Herbrand tool crib, located under the parquet stands behind the Indianapolis Motor Speedway pit lane, the pair revealed four innovative tools from the $15,000 inventory.  

The first known as the “multiscope” used like a doctor’s stethoscope to diagnosis problems inside engines without disassembly.  Next up - the hand-operated Herbrand valve seating tool, designed for use with the four-cylinder Offenhauser engine, used a carbide cutter to cut and groove the valves seat that replaced the electric operated abrasive grinders previously used. 

The pair then showed the reporter the “dzus tool” a short-handled screwdriver used to remove the self-ejecting ¼-turn dzus buttons used to attach the car’s outer skin which came to favor in auto racing following World War Two.  

Herbrand wheel hammer 

Finally, the Herbrand representatives showed the reporter the company’s ‘500’ special wheel hammer with a brass head and aluminum handle used to tighten or loosen the wheel spinner.

Late in 1956, Van Norman Industries purchased the Bingham-Herbrand Corporation and Herbrand with 800 employees continued operations in Fremont Ohio and introduced an economy line of tools known as "Vi-Chrome”

Before the 1957 Indianapolis race at the annual Mechanic’s dinner held at the Murat Temple, Ray Nichols chief mechanic for the Sumar Racing team won a fully-stocked Herbrand Rollway cabinet. Herbrand tools posted the prize money for two laps of the 1957 Indianapolis ‘500’ - lap 103 and lap 196.

The ‘500’ winner Sam Hanks made it a clean sweep as he led both of those laps then collected the master mechanics tool set in rolling cabinet as part of his record-setting $103,844 prize money with George Salih claiming his second set of Herbrand tools for winning the ‘500.’ 

In 1958, the Herbrand division of the Bingham-Herbrand Corporation posted $300 to sponsor two laps of the ‘500,’ lap 120 and lap 199.  Johnny Boyd in the ‘Bowes Seal Fast Special’ led the race at lap 120, and winner Jimmy Bryan claimed the prize for lap 199.

In 1959, in honor of being the official tool of the Indianapolis 500-mile race for the tenth straight year, Herbrand produced a special limited edition run of their new “Hex-fit” thin-body combination wrenches with a set of seven  wrenches finished in 20 karat gold in special ‘500’ packaging. Years later, these sets are considered highly collectible.

On Saturday May 2 1959, the first day of practice at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Jerry Unser turned several relatively slow warmup laps at 133 mph before the bluish silver ‘Helse Special’ spun backwards in the fourth turn, slid 580 feet and hit the inside wall. That contact punctured the fuel tank and fuel splashed over Unser. As the car slid across the track and hit the outside retaining wall broadside it exploded into flame.

Still conscious Jerry was trapped in the crumpled Kuzma by the bent steering wheel as rescuers fought to extinguish the flames and extract Unser from the car. Jerry reportedly told rescuers “My legs are on fire. Call my wife.” Jerry was transported to Methodist Hospital and admitted in critical condition with third degree burns on his legs, left arm and right hand over approximately 35 to 40% of his body. Jerry fell into a coma before he passed away from “blood poisoning” (uremia infection from his burns) at 10:15 Sunday morning May 17.

In the aftermath of Unser’s crash, Herbrand’s Ralph Little distributed dzus tools free of charge to all the members of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Safety Patrol. Little told Indianapolis News reporter Wayne Fuson that the thin, lightweight tool could easily be carried in a pants pocket. Most mechanics carried the tool to remove the half-turn fasteners, but Unser’s accident revealed the need for rescuers to have them as well.

Herbrand Tools sponsored two laps in the 1959 Indianapolis ‘500’ – lap 65 and lap 165. Johnny Thomson took the $150 check for leading lap 65 in the pink Racing Associates Lesovosky lay-down roadster, then Rodger Ward took over on lap 85 in the “3-W” entry and led the rest of the way as chief mechanic AJ Watson won his second set of Herbrand tools.

In 1960, Dick Rathmann won the Herbrand tool chest as the winning driver, but there remains controversy years later as to whom the chief mechanic award truly belonged. Up until his death in 2001, Henry “Smokey” Yunick staunchly maintained that he was the chief mechanic for the ‘Ken-Paul Special’ in 1960, but official USAC records list former riding mechanic Takeo "Chickie" Hirashima as the team’s chief mechanic, so “Chickie” collected the tool chest, the diamond pin from Wynn Oil and the Stomper Trophy at the 1960 Victory Banquet.   

Nearly sixty years later, it is unclear whether Herbrand returned in 1961 for a twelfth year as the official tool supplier at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, as the parent company, Van Norman Industries, was in financial difficulty. In July 1961 all of the Bingham-Herbrand Corporation Fremont plant equipment was sold to the American Brake Shoe Company of Chicago which announced that it would move all the equipment to Chicago.

Simultaneously, Van Norman Industries sold its hand tool division (the designs and names) to the Tool Division of the Kelsey-Hayes Corporation.  On January 1962, the Herbrand Fremont plant officially closed with Herbrand manufacturing operations relocated to a new facility built in Orangeburg South Carolina. Today on a few buildings remain on the old Herbrand site in Fremont.  

Beginning with the 1962 Indianapolis 500-mile race, Proto Tools became the Official Tool Supplier with a tool room located under the Tower Terrace grandstand near the entrance to Gasoline Alley, and during the nineteen seventies, SK Tools became the official Indianapolis 500-mile tool supplier. 

In 1964 Kelsey-Hayes bought the Bonney Forge and Tool Company and folded it into the Utica Tools Division, then in 1967 the Triangle Corporation bought the Utica Tools Division from Kelsey-Hayes. Initially all three tool brands remained in production at least until Triangle was bought out by Cooper Industries, but at some point, the Herbrand line of tools disappeared from the marketplace forever.