Ultimate Rides visits Holton Secret Lab
By Terry Murry on Thursday, September 30th, 2021 in Columbia Basin News Columbia Basin Top Stories
HELIX – Holton Secret Lab won’t be a secret anymore. The Helix-based auto restoration operation hits the big time tonight (Thursday) on the “V-8” episode of Ultimate Rides on the FYI channel. Bill Holton said the episode focused on a 1953 Willys he restored.
“They had us go around the pickup and videoed us driving it around and interviewed me and the owner,” Holton said.
The episode airs on FYI Channel 119 on DISH network at 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. The show, based in England, had a Portland videographer visit the business.
Originally, Holton had restored the pickup for a different man, who traded it back to him for another vehicle. It was destined to be used as a work truck, until another man came in and saw it. It was love at first sight.
“He had had one when he was in high school or something like this, and he just basically wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Holton said of the new owner who came down from Yakima to participate in the show. “He’s had it for about four years now.”
Holton said he was born and raised into the car restoration business and with the help of his wife, Marcy, his dream has come true.
“Now we have about 10,000 feet of shop space,” he said.
He doesn’t specialize in one particular car maker for his work, but he said that in their heart, their dream car is a Corvette.
“Both Marcy and I had Corvettes when we first got married,” he said. “That’s always our dream. She had a ’64 Corvette when we first got married and that’s our dream of getting something like that back.”
He said Marcy makes the business work.
“Marcy’s my advertising guru,” he said. “She takes care of all the books. Behind every good man there’s a good woman. I’m as proud of her as she is of me.”
As for his business, it reminds him of the baseball field in the corn in the movie “Field of Dreams” with the motto of if you build it, they will come.”
“We’re kind of the same premise,” he said. “We built a hot rod shop in the middle of a wheat field, and it took a lot of perseverance over the years.”
