I’m sitting behind Ron Heitman, next to his grandson Cooper. It is one of those gorgeous fall days that subvert Cleveland’s grey reputation. Cooper and I are belted into one of Heitman’s two Euclid Beach Rocket Cars, 30-feet-long, tall vehicles he garages on his South Euclid spread. Heitman is 69, Cooper a pre-verbal tick short of 2. I’m a few years behind Heitman.
We’re all kids in the Rocket Car.
Heitman has been running the torpedo-shaped, sci-fi vehicles for more than 30 years, thrilling folks all over northern Ohio and points beyond (renting one costs $185 an hour; an extra travel fee varies by distance). Powered by 455-cubic-inch Oldsmobile Toronado V8s, the rockets reach 136 mph. Running them that fast is sure to wreak havoc on their mileage, which at best is 6 mpg (on premium). No matter. They’ve been spreading fun since Heitman bought his first for $1,200 in 1978, nine years after Euclid Beach Park closed to make way for retirement condominiums.
A Cleveland native and lifelong East Sider, Heitman has been “playing with cars” since he was 15. He is a gearhead to the motor born.
Heitman keeps 46 cars on his property. He drag races. He races stock cars and fenderless, open-wheel sprint cars. For more than 40 years, he owned Washington and Lee Service, a garage at Washington Boulevard and Lee Road in Cleveland Heights, which he sold six years ago. One of his sidelines is fixing fire escapes in Cleveland Heights (“I’m busier than shit,” he says. “I’ve got 67 clients. The fire department inspects them twice a year. They hate everybody. They’d condemn their mother”). Between 1972 and 1995, he also moonlighted for Petersen Publishing, which publishes Hot Rod, Car Craft and 4 Wheel & Off-Road magazines, managing racing events and car shows.
In addition, Heitman’s been involved with the Cleveland Rod & Custom Auto-Rama for 44 years. Set for March 19-21 at the I-X Center, it fires his fossil-fueled imagination. “Have you ever been to it?” he asks. “Oh, my God. You’re going to be blown away. I love to bring people who have never been there.” Approximately 400 custom cars, hot rods, custom motorcycles and trucks strut their stuff; there’s a parts swap meet, and this spring, for the first time, there will be a classic car auction.
His passion, however, is his pair of Euclid Beach Rocket Cars (he bought the second in 1995), which he operates from St. Patrick’s Day to Halloween. During the winter, they’re in hibernation. “I check the bearings in the axles, I check the brakes, service the transmission, change the motor oil, tune them up, give them the best shot for a maintenance-free summer.” Is it hard to get parts? “Anything the rockets would need I’d have to make,” he says, zeroing in on the “shape of the rocket, OK?” Getting the 1971 Toronado engines – “you need that kind of cubic-inch power to pull a 6,700-pound car” – is easier. He keeps a multitude of parts, and a friend who works in a junkyard is a reliable source. “If something goes bad, I need to be up and running ASAP,” he says, “because usually I’m going from one party to another party to another party – and next day the same thing again.”
Heitman fondly recalls Euclid Beach Park, where “The Rocket” that forms the body of his unique vehicles was a ride 30 feet up in the air (no seat belts, either). Retrofitted with strobing ray guns, blasting calliope music, they’ve found new life under his stewardship.
Heitman’s fondest memory of Euclid Beach Park isn’t “The Rocket,” though he rode it many times. “What I always remember is my father and I were walking out on the pier, and there was a huge fish you could see in the water. He dove in, off the pier. He came up with the fish. Big, huge thing. That was cool. I’ll never forget that.”
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