Kas Kastner

Robert William Kastner (30 August 1928 – 11 April 2021), commonly known as R.W. Kastner or Kas Kastner, was a builder and tuner of racing cars, a racing driver, and an author.

He also raced sailing boats competitively.

At different times he was Director of Motorsports in the United States for both the Triumph Motor Company and Nissan.

Kastner has been called one of the most influential Americans in the history of Triumph cars.

He coined the maxim "Never be beaten by equipment."

Kastner was born in Batavia, New York.

After his discharge he returned to Batavia briefly, where he taught himself to drive in a 1934 Plymouth.

He soon returned to Colorado where he earned a living in a variety of jobs, including managing the pool-hall portion of a large bar, where he earned some extra money hustling pool.

His next stop was working as a mechanic at a Chevrolet dealership in Delta, Colorado.

He graduated High School in 1945, then enlisted in the US Army for a two-year stint, during which he was stationed at Fort Carlson in Colorado.

In 1951 he bought his first sports car, a Crosley Super Sport, on the basis of a road test by Tom McCahill in Mechanix Illustrated.

Kastner then moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, where he bought an MG TD in 1952.

He acquired a copy of the factory tuning manual for the TD, and with it taught himself how to repair and modify the car.

To earn a living he worked as a plater of baby shoes, a credit manager for a Chevrolet dealer and a railroad telegrapher for Union Pacific.

He continued to acquire manuals for imported cars and ordered English standard tools from overseas, over time becoming the local expert on foreign cars.

After working as the manager of an MG/Jaguar distributor, in 1953 he opened his own automotive repair shop.

Seeing Ken Miles race his R1 MG Special at Pebble Beach in 1953 inspired Kastner to build his own special.

He built his car with an engine and chassis from an MG and bodywork of 0.019 in thick aluminum paneling that was screwed in place to a framework made of welded electrical conduit.

This car was eventually followed by another home-built MG Special.

His first race was on the streets of Aspen, Colorado, where he placed second and won his class.

From there he went on to compete in several hill climbs and other events.

He first raced a Triumph in 1954 at Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

In 1956 Kastner moved with his wife and two children to California, where he went to work for Williamson Motors in Los Angeles as a mechanic.

Less than 3 months later Kastner was their service manager.

While still racing his MG-powered Special, Kastner went to work for Cal Sales, the Triumph distributor for the Western United States, in Gardenia, California as a mechanic.

By June 1958 he had risen to the position of service and parts supervisor, where he managed a staff of 70.

Kastner continued to race, winning the 1959 Class E Championship with the California Sports Car Club and the SCCA national title.

The Cal Sales distributorship was purchased by the Triumph parent company in October 1960.

Company policy barred any company executive from racing, including Kastner.

He stopped racing, but continued building performance parts in his own garage, which he then sold to Cal Sales.

He began to write manuals on how to tune and prepare Triumph cars for racing.

He also instituted a driver assistance program, providing financial support for successful club racers.

He also served as chief instructor for the California Sports Car Club at Riverside Raceway and as the National Licensing Chairman for the SCCA, as well as winning the SCCA's annual award for Best Technical Article (1963).

Kastner developed a reputation for getting more power out of the Triumph engine than anyone else, the factory included.

He used well-known methods like porting and polishing ports and milling the heads to increase the compression ratio to as much as 12.6:1.

Kastner and Dean Moon collaborated to develop a camshaft profile able to provide 150 hp with the factory SU carbs.

When the Triumph factory questioned Kastner's claimed outputs, he shipped an engine to England, where it developed 152 hp on Triumph's own dynamometer.

In 1963 Kastner took three factory stock TR4s, prepared them, and took them to the 12 Hours of Sebring, where they finished first, second, and fourth in the 2.5 GT class.

When Kastner asked to be compensated for the work he did preparing the Sebring cars, the president of Triumph refused.

Kastner called Carroll Shelby, who offered him a position and a large increase in pay.