The MuscleCar Place

This week our guest was Tommy Lee Byrd,Marketing and PR Coordinator for the Coker Tire Company. He is from Tennessee and was referred to us by Mike Finnegan. He grew up around drag cars and racing so when he went off to college he just wanted to be around cars. Tommy's dad even sold everything he could to buy him a 64 Corvette coupe as a gift. He also owns a 1964 Chevelle that is his "Grandma car" and just plain fun to drive around in. Coker tire got it's start in 1960 when Harold Coker purchased a BF Goodrich dealership in Chatanooga TN and got access to the manufacturer of tires. He started ordering special build tires for antique vehicles made from antique tire molds. He either had the rights to use the name of the old tire manufacturers are he simply put Coker on the sidewalls and a brand was born. The family would go to car shows and advertise the tire at events catering to that market. Coker built up it's collection of old tire molds after they were discontinued by the manufacturer. Tommy Lee Byrd with his daughter and his 64 Corvette By having contacts at the major tire manufacturers, they were able to make agreements to continue using the brand names on the tire made with these old molds. Tommy said that the radial tires with wide white walls that look like originals has really been Coker's trademark over the years. Modern radials have better ride and tire life and really enhance the old vehicles in comfort and safety. The original Coker radial was the companies own design to be like the classic tires customers were looking for. Coker's American classic tires are made in the USA using Coker molds.

Liquidating a huge collection of Buick, Olds, and Pontiacs: This week our guest was Mike Paul, the host of the Motor Madhouse Podcast and life long muscle car fanatic. His love of cars goes back to his upbringing and he has learned a lot from his father where he helped him curate a collected of Buick, Olds, and Pontiac muscle cars that were all well documented (and rare enough) to warrant a restoration. Many have highly rare option combinations, or in one case ONLY go fast options and nothing else. Mike told the details and gives some history on some of the cars which was fascinating on many levels. While they did have the chance to restore many cars, but there's only so much time in life and the reality was they'd never see them all done. This discussion is all about liquidating the collection and moving them on to new homes!

This week I spoke to Jo Coddington, racer, car enthusiast, TV celebrity, and Motorsports spokesperson. She became a household name along with her husband Boyd Coddingon on the television show American Hot Rod, but that was not at all where she really gained her start in the industry. Jo was born in Woodvine Iowa, but grew up "out west" in Phoenix Arizona due to allergies that had no known cure at the time. She was raised in a racing family and after graduating from a go kart, she moved into dirt sports. Jo tells the story of her dad not allowing her to come home until she had rebuilt the race engine she had blown up. She worked on it at a friends garage and thought she could talk him into fixing it, but he was in on the plan with her dad. Years later Jo admits that making her build that engine just reinforced her desire to be involved and could not keep her out of the garage.

In this episode I spoke to Sean Holman, half of the Lightning and Holman duo that hosts the hit podcast "The Truck Show" for Motortrend. Mike Finnegan introduced us and the two shows have collaborated on a few things over the last year. Sean has always been fascinated with automotive topics and trucks but his start is not the typical story. Early on, Sean obtained a degree in criminal justice and wanted to be an officer. Unfortunately he did not like the bureaucracy and started looking for alternatives to his chosen career.  On Sept 11, 2001 he was working in a Boeing factory working security supporting the Shuttle missions and had to make sure the plant was shut down and secure right after the attacks. Employees were watching the skies and listening to silence, unsure of what would happen next. Sean made the jump out of security right after that, by making contacts at Primedia and working his way into being the associate editor of Truckin' magazine.

This week I talk to Gil Winningham from Quick Trick Alignment products. You may remember hearing the name before as I had Tess Winningham on the show back in 2015. Gil has stepped in since then has been working hard on social medial and promotions ever since. He is also a racer and spends weekends at the track with the QuickTrick Honda Accord and also helping out other racers with alignments. Gil's step dad Gary created the system to help him change alignment settings at the track or at least to save himself from hauling his race car to an alignment shop every week. People at the track saw this invention and wanted one for themselves and a business was created. Gil says that QuickTrick is always adding new products that enhance the portable alignment tool and save customers time and money.

This week I spoke to Steve Myers Owner of Skunk River Restorations with an interview conducted - for the first time ever - right here in my own office! Skunk River is a local Ames, Iowa restoration business that specializes in working on the vehicles that most many other shops either cannot or do not want to work on. Steve will take on the high end and import vehicles that are sometimes hard to source parts for or that are so different that most people are scared to dig into them.

Feature Interview: In this episode I spoke AMC muscle car expert, friend, and former article writer, Wayne Davis. It has been many years since Wayne was on the show so I wanted to catch up on life, cars, and fun! Wayne was attracted to AMC muscle cars at a young age through a relative and has developed a reputation for performing highly detailed restorations on them over the years. His portfolio of previous projects include some of the most rare optioned vehicles of the line. His current project though is his favorite so far: a highly accurate AMC Javelin Mark Donohue Trans Am tribute car, complete with period AMC race engine. Unlike his other restorations, this is a car he has no problem driving and taking to the track! The car is loud, fast, obnoxious, and gets attention wherever it goes. On this edition of Ask Rick: I asked the long wondered listener question of "Is your hold music from the Dudley Moore movie, Arthur?" He did not immediately know, but we will find out in the next episode! On a more serious note, one listener did want to know whether the aftermarket industry has experienced a downturn this year, and whether NPD has seen that as well. He hasn't seen that for NPD and we discussed the attributing factors.

In this episode I talked once again to my dear friend Zip Simons, co-owner of Street Metal Concepts in Orlando Florida. Zip and Don Endonino put the paint and finishing touches on my Chevelle in 2016. It is hard to believe that it has been that long since they have been on the show even though I talk to them often since then. Street Metal Concepts Humdinger on Diesel Power Magazine cover Zip and Don have been working on cars for a very long time now and I wanted to get some behind the scenes info. He said that one of SMC's biggest features is it's record keeping. Every "valuable" hour is documented with what work was done and what decisions were made. This information is then provided back to the customer so they are comfortable with what is being done to their treasured vehicle. Zip says a lot of time is spent on project planning and documentation but in the long run it is all worth it. They also provide photo documentation on an ongoing basis and many customers look forward to the pictures of how the process is going. It keeps them involved and interested instead of becoming a drop it off and forget it relationship. Zip wants them to understand what is going on and what is involved. Butch Poes '63 Chevy II by Street Metal Concepts Creating a custom vehicle is an emotional roller coaster and the guys want the customers to know this right up front. Quite often they get unfinished projects from other shops and this is usually due to the lack of a relationship. These vehicles are not a necessity and emotionally driven and the emotions run out before the project gets finished. Zip and Don want the customer to be comfortable and know the ball is in their court.

In this episode Nathan Warren came on to talk about the "season two" updates to my General Lee. It has been a year since Nathan came on the show to talk about the formation and goals of his business....and then offered to showcase his abilities by helping me to convert my car to a screen accurate version of how it would have appeared in Season 2 of the Dukes of Hazzard! Well, fast forward a year, and the car is now there and is in his capable hands. This episode is the update of everything related!

In this episode I spoke once again to friend of the show Mike Fadel, Director of Sales and Consignments at Streetside Classics. Streetside has made a major impact for both buyers and sellers of collector cars, muscle cars and otherwise by going strictly consignment and by utilizing massive amounts of data to fine tune where cars cab be bought and sold. And....it's working! In just the last few years they've been growing at a rapid rate and I wanted to see if he could give me the hottest look at what 2019 holds. Ask Rick: On this edition of Ask Rick Rick shared the final results from the recent AACA show in Ocala and regarding the judging of his 1955 Pontiac Star Chief  specifically. He told me it passed with no issues! He went on to say that prior to AACA judging he did correct quite a few things with the car and he would be proud to enter it even into a Pontiac specific show. The vehicle specific shows are a bit different than AACA since the people that judge are specialists in those cars specifically where an AACA judge has a breadth of knowledge regarding all makes and models. The AACA shows do a great job of judging overall quality of a vehicle as a collector car and is something to look for when purchasing a car.

In this episode I spoke to Gray Fredrick, the sales director for Advanced Fuel Dynamics. AFD's entire goal is to maximize the affordable power-adder benefit available in E85 fuel...but without the need for an E85 specific engine tune. Why? Because E85 fuel is an inconsistent blend pump-to-pump and state to state. With that said however, they have found a way to let the ECM do the job needed to gain that happy wonderful octane supplement  and this discussion is all about that very process. The OEM's have found a way to utilize E85 well enough with fuel economy in mind....but performance is the objective of AFD.

In this episode I had the privilege of doing something rare; an interview with a local shop! I traveled across Ames to do a rare live interview with Sean Barber, owner of Anything Scout and New Legend 4x4. Believe it or not, but in the small college town of Ames, IA lives one of the premier businesses in the world of International Scout parts, supplies, and custom builders. This interview tells their story of specializing in the niche of Scouts - and of going ALL IN on the business of choosing the custom route for them vs factory restorations.

This episode marks a fun trip to the January auctions! Our intrepid show producer Bernie McPartland was our man on the scene at Barrett Jackson in Scottsdale Arizona and while there caught up with Bret Voelkel of RideTech. To follow up with that, we had Rick Schmidt on to get his opinion on the auction world as a whole, both from a marketing perspective for NPD and as a buyer and seller of cars. I also really wanted his opinion on the higher-than-normal sales prices of "Resto-mod" Corvettes at the Barrett Jackson auction (which he does watch annually) vs their fully restored counterparts. 

This weeks interview is with Ed Capen, Vice President, Sales and Sponsorships for Good-guys Rod & Custom Association to talk about the new rules for the 2019 racing season. Ed has been on the show previously and we got straight into the rules. Good-guys is first and foremost a car show with an Autocross added on. The customer is the car show attendee and the goal is to make it fun and so that car owners do not have to build their cars specifically for this race series. The new rules are very exciting and make it possible for a normal or slightly modified classic car owner to be able to compete against other similar vehicles. Classes such as Pro-X now exist but the massive tire, super lightweight, race specific cars are not competing against Joe Normal's heavy car with smaller tires.

This weeks interview is with Taylor Hull, a drift car racer that I met for just a minute at the SEMA Show in 2018. Taylor has always been into cars and his family supported his dreams of racing. His day job is at Allied Rentals is very forgiving of his racing schedule and gives him some leeway to pursue his dream. Taylor has tried many aspects of racing including some circle track experiences and some time in the NASCAR Truck series. His found he loves drifting and says that racing on your own is exhilarating and rewarding.