Shop Tour: Hotchkis Performance East

If you are a hot rodder–and especially if you are into Pro Touring–then you’ve probably heard of John Hotchkis and Hotchkis Performance out of Santa Fe Springs, California. But did you know the Hotchkis Empire recently made a major expansion when it opened the doors of Hotchkis Perfomance East in North Carolina?

Hotchkis Performance made its name producing sport suspension upgrades for a wide variety of cars. But Hotchkis says he wanted to be able to increase the pace of innovation, and having a second facility should allow that. The new shop, known as Hotchkis Performance East (HPE), just opened their doors a few months ago in Mooresville, NC. That location is no accident; Mooresville is nicknamed “Race City USA” because it is the hub for the great majority of NASCAR race teams and HPE is taking advantage of all that talent to build some jaw-dropping cars.

Kevin Bryde has been tapped to manage the east coast shop. Before coming on to lead HPE, Bryde spent 17 years working in NASCAR Cup shops and is a master fabricator, and his crew are currently all ex-NASCAR fabricators. Right now, HPE is ramping up production of crossmembers and other components. But Bryde is also a hot rod shop and has some pretty interesting cars already. We recently stopped by to see what Bryde and his staff of craftsmen and fabricators were working on, and he graciously allowed us to snap a few shots for you. These two cars obviously have a long way to go, but as hot rodders we enjoy seeing well-made cars in the midst of construction just as much as we enjoy seeing the finished product. So check out what we’ve got for you.

Kevin Wesley’s 1976 Dodge Dart

This Dodge Dart is only in the beginning stages but we have no doubt you will be seeing it as a very popular magazine feature car in the next year or so. That’s because the owner is Kevin Wesley, who not only is a former winner of the One Lap of America, but is also the owner of a very cool four-door 1970 Plymouth Satellite powered by a hi-po 440 and outfitted with big sticky tires and a full Hotchkis TVS suspension. You can see more of that car in the video below where Hot Rod used it for some pretty intense tire testing.

Bryde says the Dart is going to be built as a multi-purpose race car that will be doing everything from weekend autocrosses to the one-and-only Pikes Peak hillclimb. Bryde told us Wesley also hopes to some day take it to the Nurbergring for a few hot laps. What it won’t be, Bryde says, is a trailer queen.

It doesn’t look like much now, but HPE’s Kevin Bryde tells us the 1976 Dodge Dart they are building for Kevin Wesley will be a full bore racing machine.

Motivation will be provided by this Dodge SRT8 crate Hemi.

Bryde said the car arrived with a rudimentary roll cage. HPE is keeping what they can of it but had to cut out much of the rear section and interior to make room for a passenger seat.

Bryde (pictured) explains how much of the door interior will be cut out and re-engineered for electric windows. Hey, just because you want to go fast doesn’t mean you have to lean over to roll down the window glass.

The rears will be mini-tubbed to accept a 295 wide wheel/tire combination.

Kevin Bryde’s 1985 Oldsmobile Cutlass

Bryde’s Olds Cutlass is not only his personal car, it’s also HPE’s R&D chassis. There’s already been a ton of work done on the car, but it also has a long way to go. The only shame is Bryde makes his own car sit and wait while customers’ cars are completed.

Kevin Bryde’s personal car is a 1985 Oldsmobile Cutlass which will be a real monster when complete.

This is only a mockup engine. Bryde plans to power the Cutlass with a 6.2 liter LS plumbed to twin turbos. Expected output will be around 700 horsepower. It’s not the crazy 1,000-plus numbers we are starting to hear thrown around these days, but Bryde wants to keep the power driveable so that the car will be competitive in events like the Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational.