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KD Country: Hall Industries

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Jun 22, 2009 6:55 pm US/Eastern

KD Country: Hall Industries

LINK: Hall Industries

Reporting
Dave Crawley
ELLWOOD CITY (KDKA) ― An electric car, minus the battery, rolls slowly toward the entrance of a long ago Studebaker dealership in Crafton.

It is pushed by a trio of antique car buffs, straining against the rust of time. It's one of two electric cars in Harold Hall's collection.

"In the 60s, the Westinghouse Electric Company toyed with the idea of making an electric car," says the 87-year-old owner.

He says only fifty or so were ever made.

More than two dozen vehicles make up his vast collection of vintage vehicle ranges, beginning with a 1904 Pierce.

"The English Austin Seven," he continues, gesturing toward a sports car of decades past. "Seven horsepower. It was a fine little car."

A heavier version was later produced by what would become the Bantam Car Company of Butler.

Harold Hall is the owner of Hall Industries, a manufacturing company based in Ellwood City. He proudly points out that most of his automotive antiques actually run.

"This is a 1914 Buick," he says, pointing out a gleaming reconstruction. "A big difference from the '42 Mercury. The greatest cars, in my opinion, came in the '30s and '40s."

He owns a classic pair of Thunderbirds, and a '51 Mercedes Benz with a manual arm turn signal. These aren't just cars. They're history.

"I'm a mechanical engineer," Hall says, "and I envision all the people who developed these things, how they had to think through to get where they're at."

Things like a 1936 hybrid electric delivery truck, which, of course, still runs.

Hall Industries looks toward the future, developing a train powered by magnetic levitation. But the owner will never forget his debt to the past.
 

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