{"id":14746,"date":"2015-05-05T13:49:09","date_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=14746"},"modified":"2015-05-05T14:00:53","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T21:00:53","slug":"tom-hoover-father-of-the-hemi-passes-away-at-85","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/tom-hoover-father-of-the-hemi-passes-away-at-85\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Hoover, “Father of the Hemi” Passes Away at 85"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"MM39-Hoover-3-700x466\"
Source: George Mattar for Hemmings<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tom Hoover, \u201cFather of the Hemi\u201d passed away on \u00a0April 30th<\/sup> at the age of 85 following a long-term illness. Born and raised just west of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, his father was an auto mechanic. After high school, he went on to pursue a degree at Juanita College in his hometown, but it was interrupted by the Korean War. Hoover served 19 months overseas with the National Guard. He returned to Juanita College and completed his bachelor\u2019s degree in physics before completing a master\u2019s from Penn State. In 1955, he started at Chrysler Corporation and received a second Master\u2019s degree from the Chrysler institute in automotive engineering.<\/p>\n

While working at Chrysler, he made friends with guys who loved to race and founded the Ramchargers racing team with Wayne Erickson, Dick Maxwell, Don Moore, Bill Koger, Herman Mozer, and Jim Thornton. Hoover said that the team name comes from the then new ram<\/strong> manifold and that the cylinders were charged<\/strong> with air.<\/p>\n

At Chrysler Corp, his first project was working on the development of an early electronic fuel injection system, the Bendix Electrojector. The project wasn’t quite a success.<\/p>\n