Corbett’s Radiator closing after 61 years in Orangeburg

Corbett’s Radiator Shop closed its John Wesley Drive business Dec. 31.

“I appreciate my customers,” owner Brian Corbett said. “I thank them for their loyalty. I am going to miss the customers.”

Corbett, 68, says his plans are to retire and enjoy the rest of his life.

“It will be happy and sad because it has been a family business,” Corbett said. “I knew one day it was going to happen. I think it will be a good move for me in the long run. I just can’t do what I used to do.”

“I am ready to retire,” he continued. “I am ready to rock and roll. I am going to miss the place I am not going to deny that, but life is going to go on and I am going to enjoy it the best way I know how.”

The business has been purchased, though Corbett says he is not sure what the plans are going forward except to note that it won’t be a radiator shop anymore.

The equipment in the shop will also be purchased.

“I don’t know what they are going to do with it,” he said. “He is talking about getting a license for something but I have no idea what it is for.”

According to Orangeburg County property records, the nearly half-acre property was purchased Nov. 8, 2021, for $28,000 by Andsco Services LLC out of Myrtle Beach. 

According to online records, the company identifies itself as a medical supply store supplier. Some items listed for sale on the company’s website are medical equipment batteries, medical lighting and medical oxygen sensors. An attempt to reach the company was not successful.

The property, which is located in Orangeburg County, is currently zoned residential single-family and is surrounded by city property.

According to Orangeburg County’s Zoning Ordinance, the business was grandfathered into the residential neighborhood.

Going forward, the property can remain as a business if it is not left idle or unused for a continuous period of six months whether or not the equipment or fixtures are removed, according to the county’s zoning ordinance.

The zoning ordinance also notes the business can continue as a business if there are no structural alternations such as changes in height, density, setbacks or other requirements such as an increase in off-street parking. The change would also need to have “little discernable impact over the existing non-conforming use,” according to the code.

Corbett’s Radiator was founded around 1960 by Corbett’s uncle, Joe B. Corbett.

The shop at that time was located next door to its current location. The building of the former shop can still be seen.

Brian said his father, James L. Corbett, retired from the United States Navy after having served in World War II and the Korean War and joined Joe at the shop around 1961. Brian recalled growing up right next door to the shop during his childhood days.

“There was nothing but a wagon trail road when I cam down here in 1961,” Corbett said.

Brian worked part-time in the shop, helping out his father and uncle while attending high school at the former Orangeburg High School until 1971 when he graduated. The year was also when Orangeburg High School merged with Wilkinson High School to form today’s Orangeburg-Wilkinson High School.

Around 1969, the current Corbett’s Radiator Shop building was constructed and has been open until this day.

Following graduation from high school, Corbett joined the Orangeburg Department of Public Safety as a fireman and policeman, working for about 24 years while he continued to operate the radiator shop.

Both his father and uncle retired in the mid-1980s and Corbett took over the shop full-time.

Over the years, Corbett’s has continued its main specialty of cleaning, repairing and recoring radiators from autos and the farm and industrial sectors.

But much has changed over the past 60 years, Corbett said.

Like many businesses, online shopping has impacted the radiator shop.

“The people don’t get things repaired like they used to,” Corbett said. “Everybody can get online or call Amazon or get on a computer and look up a new radiator especially for your automobiles. Everybody sells a radiator now. Now it is a broader world up there. They kind of bypassed me.”

Corbett says most of his business comes from phone calls asking for repairs but even that side of the business has slowed down.

“We don’t have the comforts of working on the vehicles anymore,” he continued. “It is a buy-and-throw-away world today. They can take it to any shop besides a radiator shop. Back in the ’60s, if you have a radiator problem you come it to a radiator shop. Now times have changed.”

“We are so specialized,” he continued. “Back in the days, that is what our thing was. That is all we did at that time.”

Over the years those he has served has also changed.

Industrial clients such as John Deere tractors and forklifts now make up about 80% of his business. Automobiles make up the other 20%.

Corbett says as more and more radiator shops closed, his service area grew to include Orangeburg and Calhoun counties, as well as parts of Charleston, Summerville and Columbia.

“Once the radiator shops started closing up around me up here, they stared looking me up a little bit,” he said. “Radiator shops are starting to be extinct to a certain point.”

Corbett has worked at the business with his 17-year-old grandson Cameron Nettles. Nettles currently attends Edisto High School and plans to go to Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College to major in electrical instrumentation.

His goal is to eventually find his own job, though he was fairly adamant that he has no plans to own his own business.

Though he will miss the customers, Corbett says the thing he will least miss is the “cold and the heat.”

“It is cold in this shop during the wintertime and hot in this shop in the summertime,” Corbett said. “This place was not built for climate control.”

Now that he is retiring, Corbett plans to stay busy and not worry.

“I ain’t got to worry about getting up on Monday morning when it is 30 degrees outside,” he said. “I will be in a nice warm house. And when it is 100 degrees outside, I will be in a nice cool house.”