Motor Mouth: Hot rod shop tearing it up for decades - Anderson Independent Mail
Richard Hartman spent the first part of his career traveling the country tearing up drag strips a quarter-mile at a time. In 1993, Hartman brought his family from California to the Upstate, making the decision largely on the folks he met. But it’s Hartman’s love of racing that runs even deeper, a love he inherited from his father, Virgil. It was on the circuit when Hartman met J. Ed Horton, a respected chassis fabricator who had years of experience under his belt. He also owned a shop in Belton, one that Hartman joked he was going to buy. By 1996, Hartman owned a shop, and by 2003, Horton was ready to sell and merge his shop with Hartman’s. The result is Hartman Machine Works, a fabrication facility that’s cranking out some of the fastest hardware to hit the drag strip — all tucked in a nondescript building near downtown Belton. Horton, who now has 50 years of experience under his belt, still works at the shop, although nowhere near the 15-hour days, seven days a week he used to work through the 1970s and ’80s. Horton said he got into the business by “hanging around with... “We’re evolving more into street rods and nostalgia cars,” Horton said. One such street rod was the Mongrel hot rod owned by Scott McCallum, which was featured in a recent column. , Westminster Depot parking lot, Main Street, Westminster. Source: www.independentmail.com
