A high-performance team
Annapolis Valley brothers known for championship-winning engines
When I visited an engine shop tucked away in a tiny corner of the Annapolis Valley recently, I was surprised at how quiet the shop floor was considering the engines they create have made such a noise in competitive racing circles for close to five decades.
Allyn Armstrong and his brother John started A&J Automotive in the stable of an old barn in Melvern Square, Kings County, N.S., in 1973. Today, they fill about 300 orders per year for high-performance engines or custom engine parts for loyal customers across Canada and U.S. locations including Pennsylvania, New York, North Carolina and Florida. They have even shipped engines and custom parts as far away as Sweden. Closer to home, they are the go-to shop to build and repair engines for many stock cars and dragsters across the Maritimes.
The Armstrong bothers have earned a stellar reputation for quality workmanship and technical expertise that has produced championshipwinning high-performance engines. That reputation has grown out of respect for the custom cars they have built and raced themselves in events sanctioned by the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) across eastern Canada and the U.S. Allyn is known for his modified Opels and John for his Camaros and a Corvette.
They are also members of the Maritime Motorsports Hall of Fame.
Even at age 75, Allyn still drag races in the Eastern U.S. Division 1 of the NHRA up to five times a year.
“It’s the racing thing that got us noticed,” he said during a recent interview.
After seeing what the Armstrongs did to their own engines, many fellow racers became both friends and customers over the decades.
“More power is what they are looking for,” he said. “So that’s what we try to do by providing more airflow in the cylinder heads and better ring packages for piston sealing and compression.”
Fred Thibeault is a drag racer from the Valley who has brought his cars and engines to the Armstrong bothers for 45 years.
“Their work is nothing but the best, and they also have the best equipment in Canada, probably, to do it with,” Thibeault said recently.
The car bug bit Allyn in the industrial arts class at Middleton High School, during the auto mechanic and welding class. Soon he started his career as a mechanic at a local car dealership with $400 worth of hand tools.
Eventually, he and his brother John opened a small garage in nearby Wilmot before Allyn, and his wife Connie bought the farm in Melvern Square in 1971. In 1973 the brothers started adding to the old barn, eventually completing the 20,000-square-foot facility they and three other staff use today.
But the Armstrong brothers have witnessed many changes in their business since highperformance racing went high tech.
Connie Armstrong, who has been working in the business side of A&J Automotive since the beginning, remembers when the brothers towed an old lathe from the shop in Wilmot to the farm.
“When we started, we had one lathe. It came up from the other shop with an Edsel under it. When I remember what they could do on that lathe compared to what they can do on these CNC machines now, It’s fascinating. I don’t want to know how to do it. It’s just fascinating,” she said.
“Changes in technology require investment,” Allyn said. “You have to stay up to date.”
He remembers how the $400 hand tools gave way to expensive and powerful CNC or computer-controlled machinery that make repeated and highly accurate movements using computer-generated code.
“When we first started, you hardly ever heard of a CNC machine. Now I have six of them,” he said.
“Looking back, I don’t like all the modern technology in cars. I like what it can do for me. The bad part is the cost.”
CNC machinist Lucas Sabine is happy A&J Automotive has made a successful transition to the high-tech side of the business.
“There is nobody better to learn from probably,” Sabine said of his boss.
“His experience has taught him what works and what doesn’t.”
Allyn and John don’t look back much. They are focused on the custom engine and parts orders being filled and shipped to customers.
Allyn said he likes to spend his 16-hour days, six days a week, sharing the machine work with John. But, he leaves the engine assembly work to his brother.
“He’s better at that. He has more patience,” Allyn said with a grin.
John remembers he decided he wanted to spend his time working on cars the first time his older brother took him along on a race day.
What attracted him to high-performance cars?
“The noise,” he said with a big smile. “He took me to a race in Maitland. And that did it.”
Taking pride in what they do has kept him in the game. “And I like to eat,” he said. Although the Armstrong brothers are known for their championship engines, they are also known to be modest about their success.
When asked why is he reluctant to talk about their reputation and success, Allyn said “I don’t need to.”