160 GEARS January/February 2007

Most people know Leonardo da Vinci the artist. But Leonardo was also an

architect, an inventor, and a medical researcher. His wide range of interests and skills prevented historians from categorizing him as simply an artist or inventor. For Leonardo, and a special few who shared his great gifts, histori-ans coined the term Renaissance Man.

Today, everyone has a specialty: there are doctors, lawyers, artists, and transmission technicians. Few ever begin to consider approaching life from many directions, as Leonardo did. But they do come along occasionally. Chris

Benjamin may be one of those rare individuals; a Renaissance Man for our time… and our industry.

Even if you don’t know Chris by name, you’re probably familiar with the parts company he founded in 1977: Aceomatic. In 1999 Chris sold Aceomatic to the company we know today as Axiom.

Born on December 7, 1936, Chris recently celebrated his 70th birthday; no small fete in itself. During those 70 years, he designed and built an early transmission dynamometer, created a parts company that provided one of the first parts catalogs for this industry, and designed a new planetary gear set.

But any story of Chris Benjamin’s life has to begin with his father, Art Benjamin. Art began fixing auto-matic transmissions before they actually existed: He opened his transmission shop in 1932, working on Model T transmissions.

As most of you know, the Model T

transmission operated with planetary gears and bands, much like today’s automatics. Art specialized in these transmissions, and it was here that Chris — working summers through high school and college — got his first taste of the business that was to become his life’s work.

Chris graduated college in 1961 with an engineering degree with a background in operations research and business administration. While still in college, he designed and built one of the first dynamometers for transmis-sion testing: “We took an Oldsmobile V8 engine and mounted it on a couple I-beams. We made a sliding cradle with

by Steve BodofskyChris Benjamin:A Renaissance Man for the Transmission Industry

Chris Benjamin

A view of the Pacific Ocean from Chris' backyard.

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an adapter plate. We didn’t use a torque converter; we just drove [the transmission pump and input shaft] directly.

“We’d bolt the transmission to the adapter plate, and slide it up to the engine. We had a bunch of different output yokes, with a flywheel for the back: This allowed us to test coastdown downshifts. In those days it was mostly Hydromatics, Powerglides, Jetaways… basically we ran the transmission with hot oil and checked all the pressures, checked the shift points, made sure it’d downshift.”

This testing was important, because as it turns out, Chris and his father began what might be a precursor to the reman industry: “We did a big over-the-counter business, selling transmissions on an exchange basis. So it was really important for us to be able to test them in the shop.”

Chris was drafted right after gradu-ation, so he signed up with the Navy as an avionics technician, maintaining

the electronic devices used in aircraft. His experience with the Navy provided him with a unique perspective on the electronic control systems in today’s cars and trucks: “I understood the elec-tronic control systems, even though the electronics of my era were still mostly vacuum tube.

“But when I look at the control diagrams and sensors in use today, I know how important it is for today’s technicians to educate themselves, to keep ahead of the technology.

“Shop owners can’t afford to be stingy when it comes to providing train-ing. It’s in their best interests to provide that training, even if the technician eventually uses it somewhere else.”

Chris is also quick to point out the

importance of charging for diagnosis: “I used to tell my customers they haveto charge for diagnosis. Today’s diag-nosis takes too much time to simply give it away.”

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Charging for diagnosis isn’t anything new to ATRA: Refer to the January/February 2005 issue of GEARS — Charging for Diagnosis is as Easy as 1… 2… 3…— and ATRA’s POS brochure that can help you explain to your customers why paying for diagnosis may actually save them money.]

Over the next few years, Chris took a number of jobs, including working as an engineer for Mattel, a then-small toy company that “made talking dolls and Big Wheels.” He later worked as

Where it all began... Chris' father's shop.Upper photo late 1930s, bottom photo early 1960s.

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a researcher in radiation chemistry, and finally moved back to Southern California to take a job in corporate acquisitions.

With his education and back-ground, you might wonder how Chris got into selling transmission parts. At the time, his father was trying to run two businesses at once: the transmis-sion shop and his parts business. He was having trouble keeping on top of both businesses, so Chris stepped in to help. He started by running the transmission shop, and later bought the business from his father.

According to Chris, the shop did about 100 transmissions a month. That sounds like an astronomical number today, but as Chris pointed out, “In those days, transmissions were pretty simple. There were only about 3 or maybe 4 major units. And when you

didn’t have any cars in the shop, you could rebuild units and put them on the shelf. On one hoist, you could do three or four transmissions a day.”

So how did they get into selling transmission parts? Art opened his parts business back in the ’60s, selling transmission parts for Lempco and Trampco.

“Back in the 40s, 50s, 60s, and even into the early 70s — you couldn’t buy OEM rubber components from the major aftermarket suppliers the way you can today,” Chris explained. “Nor could you buy original equipment clutch plates.

“I saw the failures in transmissions, and the need for components that weren’t readily available. It piqued my interest from a developmental point of view: How could we bring the product to the marketplace? How could we establish relationships

with OEM suppliers that would allow us to offer high quality merchandise?

“As the industry grew, distributors became more sophisticated, and we began to provide an outlet for major manufactur-ers such as BorgWarner, Sealed Power… Those big companies invested their own money for R&D and tooling, and they hoped to recoup some of that money by taking advantage of aftermarket sales. They saw the aftermarket as a profitable opportunity, so my timing [in entering the parts market] was very good.”

Another addition Chris made to the parts business was to create his own cata-log. “In the beginning, we would use the Lempco catalog, but they became a little upset when we used their catalog to sell other manufacturers’ parts. So I decided the best way to deal with it was to create our own catalog. I started working on it in

Chris Benjamin: A Renaissance Man for the Transmission Industry

Chris, as a kid working in his father's shop.

Chris Benjamin's Birthday Party

Left to right: Chris, Maria Brooks (in costume), Martin Brooks, Sally Benjamin

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about 1979, so by 1980 we had our first catalog.

“Once the catalog was finished, we decided we didn’t have enough room in the transmission shop to store the parts we needed. That’s when we decided to sell the transmission shop, and become a parts company full time.”

Chris sold Aceomatic in 1998 and retired in 1999, but he didn’t just walk away from the industry. He started tin-kering with some ideas he’d had over the years. One of those ideas had to do with the planetary gearset in the 180 transmis-sion used in the small Post Office Jeeps. The assembly, which used three pinion gears, wasn’t holding up, and Chris believed it was because it just wasn’t strong enough to handle the load.

Chris has a machine shop in his basement, and he began working on redesigning the planetary gearset for these transmissions. It took him about a year in his spare time to come up with a working solution: His new design increases the number of pinion gears in the planets from three to four, mak-ing the assembly stronger and more durable.

“What I didn’t know then was the folks at Axiom were interested in the contract to maintain those Post Office vehicles. I’d tooled up and built pro-totypes of the new planets, and had them running in some of the local Post Office Jeeps, trying to find any defi-ciencies in them.

“Axiom called me and said they were interested in bidding on the busi-ness. They bought my tooling and manufacturing process, and sold the Post Office on a bulletproof unit that eliminated the failures of the original design.”

You might think that, at 70, Chris would be ready to slow down. Think again: “I’ve been getting involved in amateur racing. I have a hot Mustang with a supercharger that I take to the track. I belong to two or three clubs. We go out on the weekends and race

on big tracks like Willow Springs and Button Willow. And I have a BMW that I race in autocrosses.”

And what does his wife think of his new passion? “Oh, she comes out and drives too. In fact, we’re going to race an autocross this Sunday in the parking lot at California Speedway.”

Chris Benjamin: rebuilder, entre-preneur, publisher, inventor, and now, racecar driver. A Renaissance Man for our time… and our industry.

Chris sold Aceomatic in 1998 and retired in 1999, but he didn’t just walk away from the industry. He started tinkering with some ideas he’d had over the years.

Chris with good friend Donna Covino

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