Background
Harry Hartz was born in Pomona, California, and grew up in the Los Angeles area.
Harry Hartz was born in Pomona, California, and grew up in the Los Angeles area.
The following year, Hartz was behind the wheel of the Duesenberg and finished in second place. In 1923, he finished in second place again in a Cliff Durant Special, and placed in fourth position next year. In 1925, he brought his own 121 cu in (20 L) Miller and finished fourth, and returned the next year with his 90 cu in (15 L) Miller Special to capture second place.
At age eighteen, he began to drive in support events for the car races of the time. He was a mechanic, but sought to be a race car driver and signed on with the Duesenberg brothers after World War I. Hartz made his debut at the 1921 Indianapolis 500 race as Eddie Hearne"s riding mechanic. His car had a mechanical failure in 1927.
Hartz was successful in board track racing.
Hartz was badly burned and injured in a crash in 1927 at the Rockingham Speedway in Salem, New Hampshire, requiring him to spend the next two years in hospitals. The stock market crash of 1929 also inflicted heavy financial loses for him.
He retired from racing to become a team owner and chief mechanic. Hartz bought a used 1927 Miller 91 front-drive race car, and built the car for the junk-formula by widening the chassis and installing a bored-out Miller 122 (151 cu in).
Hartz appeared in the racing sequences for the 1932 movie The Crowd Roars.
Hartz worked for Studebaker for many years. After Chrysler began using auto racing as a promotional tool to sell its cars, in 1933 DeSoto recruited Hartz for a publicity stunt by driving a car backwards across the country. During mid-August 1934, he set 72 new American Automobile Association stock car records at the Bonneville Salt Flats course in Utah in a Chrysler Imperial Airflow coupe.
At the end of the month, Hartz drove the same car from Los Angeles to New York City and set an economy record of 18.1 miles per United States gallon (130 L/100 km.
217 mpg-imp), and without having to add water at any time during all of these performance runs. Another source credits him with driving the newly introduced DeSoto Airflow 3,114 miles (5,011 km) from New York to San Francisco, and averaging 21.4 mpg-United States (110 L/100 km.
257 mpg-imp), with total fuel bill of United States$33.06 for the run. After having much success, he retired in 1940.
Later, Hartz had a serious automobile accident from which he never fully recovered.
He died in Indianapolis, Indiana at age 77.