can do to not take that thing and start working on it. It’s kind of driving
me crazy. But that’s what he wants, so ...”
Lenny Fronholtz does all the assembling and testing on all the
repaired and reproduction big-block MoPar radiators. “He makes
them exactly the way I want them,” said Bob Schirmer. Here
Fronholtz solders and assembles a radiator for a 1973 Plymouth
Duster.Clearly, having any radiator, power steering cooler or transmission
cooler wind up in a customer’s hands that doesn’t reflect Glen-ray’s
absolute best effort goes against the grain for Schirmer, which probably
helps explain why the family-run shop has been humming along nicely
since 1964. The venture started when Ray Sr. and his brother Glen
moved from Chicago to Wausau to open their own radiator business. For
many years, the company did what most radiator shops do all day every
day — it fixed and sold radiators to local car owners.
R.C. joined the business after high school, and Bob eventually did the
same in 1987. “When I got married, Dad said I should come and work
for the family business,” Bob recalled. “I had worked for the Chrysler
dealer in town, so I really knew them. I started off on the phone and
installing heaters and radiators.”
Bob knew Chryslers so well, in fact, that he spent plenty of weekends
walking car shows and swap meets looking for Chrysler radiators that he
knew car buffs needed, namely big-block MoPar muscle cars from the
late 1960s and early ’70s, including Hemis. That idea worked pretty well
for a while, but finding such radiators became harder and harder,