You know Eaton products even if you don’t know the corporation. The company is an OE supplier of all sorts of items, the most glorious of which are the superchargers found in many applications such as the Ford Cobras and the new Corvette ZL1. Eaton parts are used in the making of Magnuson superchargers and many others in the aftermarket, and Eaton Performance includes such brands as Detroit Locker and Tru-Trac differentials and the famous Eaton Posi (the only true Posi-branded diff).

But Eaton has suffered the same meltdown as the rest of the country and terminated 5,200 American employees on Tuesday.

Bringing a face to it, one of those employees was our own insider and friend John Sonnefeldt, the gearhead zealot behind the marketing of the performance line. Support him and get some more free online entertainment by checking out his car-guy Web radio show at HotRodNationRadio.com. It’s something today after you go home early today and tip back a few.