A 1971 Pontiac LeMans is getting a makeover as part of a project to memorialize Eddie Hartman, a Butler High graduate and sports star.

It also is a project to speak out against the crime — drunken driving — which killed him more than three decades ago.

The project started with Dave Fox who has kept Hartman’s 1971 LeMans for 32 years after buying it for $500. Hartman had sold him the vehicle to get money to pay off an engagement ring for his high school sweetheart — an engagement that would end in tragedy on the night before their wedding.

“Over the year’s I’ve thought about selling it, but I couldn’t,” Fox said. “It’s Eddie’s LaMans. I’m kind of like the caretaker.”

Fox’s proposal to fix up the car caught the attention of Byron Dreher, an automotive instructor at the Butler County Vocational-Technical School. He is a 1976 graduate of the district who remembers Hartman’s athletic successes.

He agreed to take on the project and enlist students to work on refurbishing the vehicle.

Hartman, a 1979 Butler graduate, was a three-sport athlete. He lettered in football, basketball and track, and was inducted into the district’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 2001.

Hartman also earned a Division II, NAIA All-American selection for his quarterback play in his junior year at Geneva College.

But Hartman was 22 years old when he was killed on the night of May 27, 1983, the day before he was to marry his high school sweetheart. His car was hit head on by a drunken driver.

The plan, Fox said, is to take the vehicle to shows and promote his friend’s legacy as well as speak out against drunken driving.

“The LeMans will be like a time capsule,” Fox said. He called Hartman the original “Christian athlete.”

Fox said there will be a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the project June 11, and he has promised Hartman’s mother the first ride in the refurbished vehicle.