Diamond Pistons is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Take a look back at the company's humble roots, and rich, racing heritage. In the early days of hot rodding, those who sought optimum performance became innovators, pushing the envelope of speed in the quest for racing glory. Diamond Pistons, founded in 1968–the heyday of muscle cars and drag racing– was born of that innovation and continues today to be a driving force in performance and racing piston design.

Its original founders, “Diamond” Jim Cavallaro, Nick Plantas and Butch Eldkins, were a group of racers and entrepreneurs who combined resources to form the company’s first iteration. It didn’t take long for them to carve a niche in the high-performance game, with Diamond quickly becoming involved with Super Stock and Pro Stock in the early ‘70s. Like many companies of that ilk and era, Diamond wasn’t focused on doing just one thing. Instead, they did it all. Cylinder head porting, engine building, and all other manner of performance took place under Diamond’s roof.

“It was a vast line of stuff they did,” said Mike Panetta, who is currently Sales and Product Manager for Diamond. “They built Pro Stock engines, did head work, and even had the NASCAR contract to build all the engines for the IROC cars. It was a fully operational machine shop, which built a lot of parts; from rocker arms, to fittings, and pretty much anything else they needed.”

As demand for performance peaked, Diamond started to machine their own pistons using forging blanks finished in-house to their rigid specs and quality. That business plan continued into the early ‘90s when a new owner, Bob Fox, decided to shift the company’s considerable engineering resources solely to piston development.