Yeah that’s plural! In the history of sports cars there are few names that conjur up such romantic visions of automotive glory as the Mercer Raceabout. We’re were so excited this morning we couldn’t stand it, and within minutes of opening up the shop everyone was outside to watch not one, but two Mercers roll off the trailer and into our lives! It’s an honor to be the caretakers of such wonderful pieces of car history, but mostly it’s just AWESOME to see these cars!

We didn’t have our rig set up at the Goodguys Nashville Nationals this year, but the show is just too close to home to pass up. It’s always a great mix of hot rods and muscle cars, and the swap meet is generally packed with good parts. This year, attendance appeared to be down slightly from last year, but that was to be expected with most folks’ apprehension concerning the massive flooding a couple of weeks ago. We saw lots of cars rolling on Coker tires and grabbed a few shots while we were there. Check it out!

David Kennedy rolled into the Nashville Nationals in this low slung Deuce roadster pickup, which sits on a set of Excelsior Comp V tires. The satin black paint scheme looks great with the deep red accents.

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My grandfather, Pop Coker had three boys who he passed the “old car disease” on to by blood. Dad’s the oldest, middle one is Bob, and the youngest was Bill. Bill died a few years ago. We miss him. This blog ain’t about Bill though. It’s about Uncle Bob. Many of my car guy friends know Uncle Bob. He’s crazy. But in a good way. You can find him at Hershey or Charlotte and coming up this summer you can find him at the Buick Club National Meet. He likes Buicks. In a big way.

He ended up with a really rare Buick. It is a 1954 “ONE of ONE” Landau special body car made specifically by Buick for the Autorama or something. It is really a special car. Here’s the video about the car:

The You tube video was done by Lamar Brown from Athens, GA. The older guy is my Uncle Bob. Am proud of him. He’s done good….and he’s a good guy…..even though he’s got Buick’s on the Brain!

From the road,

Corky

My father’s father was one of 13 brothers and sisters raised in the hills of Western North Carolina in a little area near Murphy called Brasstown. His name was Hardy but everyone including folks in the community called him Pop. Pop died a few years back at 97 years young. Fast forward a few years to Greg Cunningham moving with son Taylor to Chattanooga, falling in love with my daughter Casey and getting married. Taylor needed names for his new grandparents so out came Mimi and Pop Corky. I like it immediately because Pop Coker was gone and it was special to Taylor.

So you get the gist of this blog is that Corky is not just Corky any more but “Pop Corky” fondly referred to by my grandson to his grandfather. Well it aint over… Greg and Casey are now pregnant ….with Twins…..Twin boys! Here’s a copy of the scan!

It’s that time again, and we had a huge group of automotive enthusiasts from the AACA visit the Coker headquarters. Through the day, we had close to 180 folks pass through the facility, seeing many of the steps taken to keep this company rolling. They viewed the rim shop, Honest Charley Speed Shop and Honest Charley Garage, as well as a look inside Corky’s private museum. Check out the photos and click the link to download the high-resolution image, if you want to print out a photo of your group.

Our first day was a mixture of oh-craps, dang-its, and oh-no’s. We finished up the day Friday securing the speedo in “Wheezy” and making sure we replaced our duct-taped-on wheel magnets. It’s really easy to fix old rally cars 15 hours away from home…simply find another vintage car and rob all the stuff you need. Some might remember the Ponca City Great Race X-Cup Team orange-n-black Model A truck. It was our donor. We swapped a brake drum so we could have secured magnets and robbed a speedo mount. After an hours worth of wrenchin, we were good to go for Saturday.

Saturday morning early we were 3rd car out so we un-bedded, swallered a couple cups of coffee and headed for the official start. Lucky we thought to put on long sleeve t-shirts under our Honest Charley coveralls cause it was really cold all day. It looked cloudy, rainy and windy all day. GR3 looked sad as we pulled away from the hotel with her sittin there broken down with her rods all knockin and such.

We had a “maze” first thing after getting “on the clock”. A Maze is usually in a neighborhood with lots of turns and stops on the neighboorhood blocks mostly at 15 or 20 mph. The rally field always doubles back into itself so it can get pretty confusing for rookies and sometimes even the veterans. Greg and I always do pretty well in mazes and Saturday was no exception.

We met my grandson Taylor, daughter Casey, Greg’s parents and his sister Heather (husband John) in Enid, OK. When we see Heather, I get to see her sweet daughter Mary! Mary is 5 yrs old and loves Mimi (my wife Theresa) and Pop Corky. All the Cunninghams had a short lunch reunion at Braums Restaurant with Greg’s grandfather Sid, who is 86 years young.

Let me tell ya about some more good friends in Ponca City. Mel and Judy Mallory (and daughter Gay Lynn) as well as the infamous JD Hanks (of FS Ignitions and First Street Restorations) did yeoman’s work helping out with this years rally. Their shop is where my son-in-law Greg Cunningham got his car-restorin-feet wet. They are all great folks who we always enjoy seeing and hanging out with. Thanks JD, Mel, Judy, and Gay Lynn for a great time!

After our lunch reunion in thriving Enid, Wheezy, Greg and I boogied across town to the restart and after suiting up for rain, we hopped back on the clock just in time for a mid afternoon shower. Since Wheezy likes to drive topless, Greg and me got a little wet. The rain didn’t hurt Wheezy’s paint job, though cause she’s tough. Now let me tell you another secret about Wheezy. She’s a 28 Model A standard roadster and is completely unrestored cosmeticly, but Ron Kelley of Royce City, Texas built her engine and man that little Model A will surely scoot! Ron’s got magic! He definitely will be buildin an engine for me soon. Been thinkin about sending him my Gallivan double overhead cam T engine out of the Marchese Bros race car.

I guess I have ADD or CRS or something, I keep gettin off track telling you about the rally. After the rain, we had another maze and rallied into Jet, Oklahoma. Never heard of it. No offense. We finished the day right in front of Ponca City Hall. We had an 11, 2’s, 1’s and a 5 second. Curtis Graf and Ty Holmquist got three aces and five 1’s. Wish we had GR3 cause we would have loved to given them a run for their money.

The fine city of Ponca fed everyone dinner. The honorable Mayor Homer Nicholson stopped by to say hello. He wanted to make sure I knew that Ponca is a car guy town. We all agree Mr Mayor! Thanks for all your hospitality!

From the road,

Corky

After one of those famous Holiday Inn Express breakfasts, an informative rally school and the normal Mandatory Meeting Greg and I got out on the course in GR-3. It is always smart to check our Timewise Speedo against the computer of the rally master, so we did just that. There is a speedo run with computer times prepared so to ck against. Our truck sounded good and seemed to run well on the first half of the 20 min out and back speedo run. Our exercise showed being off perfect time by 2 seconds per hour. We made the correction to the speedo and started back on the back half. Then, we started hearing the noise. An engine noise to a mechanic is about as bad as hearing a surgeon say “oops”!

At the side of the road, Greg and I determined we had a strong engine knock most likely a rod knocking. Well, we limped the poor little wounded roadster pick up back to the hotel. We never got on the real course, just the speedo run!

Well Greg got on the phone immediately and borrowed a little original 28 Ford roadster with a souped up Ron Kelly motor in it. I scrambled to the parts store for magnets, and a battery to power our speedo in the little roadster, who I hear is nicknamed “Miss Screech”. We pulled the speedo lead off the GR-3 and tried liquid metal and duct tape to secure the pickup magnets to the wheel. Duct tape also secured the speedo to the steering column and off we went, almost 10 minutes late. We stopped briefly after the short speedo run to re set the speedo and started in on the course 8 minutes behind the last car. The rally course was flat (remember Oklahoma) and not greatly challenging but we did not score so great. Magnets came off so the day was not so good. I didn’t even look at the score but am sure it was about the worst of the day.

JD and Mel fed us all hamburgers at their car barn in beautiful downtown Ponca City. Afterwards, Greg and I went to their shop to secure the speedo lead and speedo mount so we can compete on Saturday. Stay tuned..

From the road,

Corky

Thursday morning dark thurty really early (430 AM ish) the Greg Cunninghams (incl Casey n Taylor and baby a and b) and Pop Corky loaded up GR3 on the trailer to head west to Ponca City, Oklahoma for the VCRA (Vintage Car Rally Association) Ruffneck Rally. Since Greg and I are standing National Champs, we had to get there to defend our title doggone it!

We rolled in to Ponca about 7 PM to catch up with all our rally friends, unload the roadster pickup GR3 and start getting ready for Friday’s rally.

This year we mounted our Go-Pro cameras to catch the action.

Let’s Rally!

From the road,

Corky

As automotive enthusiasts, the ultimate experience is a road trip in a classic car. For Tom and Juanita Harris of Inverness, Florida, road trips have become a great way to spend time with each other, and enjoy the open road. Tom and Juanita stopped by the shop today on their way to Russellville, Kentucky in a very cool ‘56 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud.

The car rolls on an older set of BFGoodrich Silvertown whitewall radials but the ride wasn’t too smooth, so they stopped in to have our crew balance them and check for any other tire- or wheel-related problems.

Keith Brown rebalanced the tires and wheels on our Hunter balancer and got the Rolls Royce back on the road in no time. We did, however, have the time to chat with Tom an Juanita and grab a photo of them with the luxurious sedan.

From Kentucky, the couple will head south to Franklin, Tennessee to start a five-day trip on the Natchez Trace with the Rolls Royce Owners Club, which ends up in Natchez, Mississippi. They’ve owned the Rolls Royce since 2006, and it’s maintained by Seldon Whispell of Whispell’s Foreign Cars in Saint Petersburg, Florida. This isn’t its first road trip and it surely won’t be the last. We wish them well on the rest of their trip, and hope they come back to see us again!

Here at Coker Tire, we’re known for (you guessed it) our tires. However, many folks are unaware that we also build wheels for all sorts of applications, from standard Model A wheels to one-off rims. The rim shop at Coker’s Chattanooga facility is set up to do many different styles and diameters, even oddball rims like the ones for Alan Woolf’s American Underslung. They measure 32 inches in diameter, so finding replacements is not an option, unless you call Coker.

Coker's rim shop, Stanweld can build many styles of wheels, from these 10-inch wheels for micro cars to massive 32-inchers for Alan's American.

Machinist, J.D. Scott built these massive lock-ring rims, felloe bands and lug hardware in house and Alan was certainly pleased with the result. Here’s what Alan has to say about his project:

The car is a 1914 American Underslung Type 644 four passenger touring. The engine is a six cylinder T head with a displacement of 572 cubic inches. American Motors Company was in business from 1906-1914. During that time they built approximately 4500 cars. The company was located in Indianapolis, Indiana. The American Underslung cars are unique because of the arrangement of the frame under the axles. This gives the car a low profile especially compared to the typical cars of the teen era. Most of the Americans also used very large wheels and in this case they used a 32 inch wheel and tire. The only other production car that used a larger wheel was the Oldsmobile Limited. They used a 33 inch wheel and tire.

Alan Woolf's 1914 American Underslung Project

Unfortunately I don’t have any good pictures of it together because when I got it was literally in pieces. Even though it is not obvious in the picture I do have 90% of the car. Right now it is a big jigsaw puzzle scattered around the shop.

Stanweld built the lock-ring style rims, the felloe bands as well as the mounting hardware.

Mounting hardware for Alan's American rims.

That's Alan on the left, and machinist J.D. Scott on the right posing with new rims.

So there you have it–A happy customer with a cool project that is sure to turn heads when it’s finished.