Several Reliability Tour Folks with big "thumbs up"!

The Pardon Me Boys Tour 2008 welcomed over 100 pre-1915 cars to Chattanooga, Tennessee. The event was sponsored the AACA Buzzards Breath Region by and hosted by AACA Chickamauga Region and HCCA Tennessee Region. The tour was five days and visited stops all over the Tennessee Valley.

Reception at Coker Tire Company

MONDAY: Monday morning kicked off with a “Crank-Up” breakfast for all tourists at the Choo-Choo. After breakfast they toured to Soddy Daisy, Tennessee to visit the home of Horsin’ Around where magnificent wooden carousel animals are crafted. After lunch the group traveled back to Chattanooga to Coolidge Park and saw one of the carousels restored by Horsin’ Around. Coker Tire hosted an evening reception for the group at their headquarters.
Mileage - 65

Mountain Valley Farm

TUESDAY: Tuesday’s tour toured through the beautiful countryside of North Georgia to Cloudland Canyon State Park. Box lunches were catered at the Park. The return trip featured a refreshment stop at Corky Coker’s Farm. Mileage – 80.

Lunch at Harold and Lil's

WEDNESDAY: The first stop at the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum where tour the rode the train and got to see their collection. After the train ride they traveled to Harold and Lil Coker’s Farm for lunch. The afternoon was free to kick tires or go visit attractions and shop in Chattanooga. Wednesday evening was a one-man show by special guest Jeff Mahl who told the story of his great-grandfather’s participation in the 1908 NY to Paris auto race. Mileage - 40

Lunch stop in Chickamauga, Georgia

THURSDAY: Visits to the Chickamauga National Battlefield Park and later travel to
Chickamaugua, Georgia for lunch with the opportunity to browse through
the shops in the interesting town. Mileage – 40.

FRIDAY: Friday’s tour visited the TVA pumped storage facility and
wildlife preserve at Raccoon Mountain. Lunch was at the Riverside
Catfish Restaurant by the Tennessee River. The afternoon was open with the banquet being a river cruise on the Southern Belle on the beautiful Tennessee river.
Mileage – 65

FOR ALL THE PICTURES FROM THIS EVENT PLEASE VISIT THE GALLERY

post your own cars, trucks and motorcycles at the Coker Tire Gallery

Corky and Theresa Coker at Hershey, PA

“Rare” is a funny word. We use it all the time to describe cool cars. “Rare” could be a car with power windows, big engine or unique color paint. “Rare” sometimes means atypical options from the factory or the mileage. How about 121 cars produced between 1915-1917, Rare?

1915 Crane Simplex Model 5

Check out this awesome slice of automobile history!  A 1915 Crane Simplex Model 5 Farnham-Nelson Torpedo Touring car in unbelievable original condition. With about the same wheelbase as an extended cab Chevy truck, this massive luxury touring car has survived 93 years of weather, wars and progress. Woodrow Wilson was our president when this car rolled out as new, and went on to see a whopping 15 more presidents until to the car you see today!!!! The Crane Simplex was the absolute pinnacle in luxury automobiles in its time and would have been owned by only the wealthiest car buyers.
This car is very original and is an amazing survivor from the early years of luxury touring cars. This car came home to the Coker Tire Headquarters today and took its place in the museum. Visitors can see this very special car there, and believe me it is amazing!

1915 Crane Simplex Model 5 Farnham-Nelson Torpedo Touring
9,238cc 6 cylinder engine
100bhp@1,800 RPM
Original paint and leather
car number 2220

The North Alabama Region AACA club visited Coker Tire Company on Friday, September 26, 2008. We enjoyed their visit to the Coker Tire Headquarters. With fresh renovations and a busy restoration shop, it was a great sunny day in east Tennessee to visit us here. Check out the pictures in the gallery for more.

Since 1993, the Vespa Club of America has sponsored an annual motorscooter rally to promote scootering and VCOA membership. Amerivespa 2008 was held in Chattanooga, TN on July 24 - 27. For more information about this year’s rally, check out the Amerivespa 2008 site.

On Friday, the tour visited Coker Tire headquarters. The rain was the monkey wrench for all the scooter enthusiasts, but many of them showed up with rain gear and good spirits. The club had a full agenda planned for their rally in the Scenic city and we’re glad they included us. Thanks guys for showing off the bikes and stopping by!

For more pics visit the gallery

The 2008 Street Rodder Road Tour Kicked off from Coker Tire Headquarters in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Our renovations were almost complete and the tour cars along with with over a hundred other cars were on display. The tour stops include Barillaro Speed Emporium in Knoxville, TN, Car Museum and Detroit Speed-Mooresville, NC, The Victory Junction Gang Camp-Randleman, NC, Harley Davidson Assembly Plant-York, PA, Posies-Hummelstown, PA, Party at Southern Tier Harley- Binghamton, NY and The Syracuse Nationals-Syracuse, NY. Casey Coker talks about the tour, stops and the kickoff show at the Coker Tire Headquarters.

See Pics from the Kickoff Show at Coker Tire Headquarters in our Gallery

Monday in Rogers, Arkansas started with a steady rain. I have been rallying for many years and have always rallyed in an open car. Our new 32 Ford Roadster pickup has a wonderful new Rodtop which performed beautifully all day. Greg Cunningham and I stayed perfectly dry all morning during the constant rain.

We rallyed thru lots of small town Arkansas eventually lunch stopping in Van Buren. It is a really cool Main street kind of town straight out of the Victorian period. I love old brick buildings and this town was full of them!

We finished the day without rain and it sure was nice being dry. Did I mention the cool Rod Top on GR3?

We finished in 7th place with a 17 seconds which was pretty darn good.

Day/Stage 3 started with lots of sunshine so we took off our top and plastered on the sunscreen. Visibility for signs is so much better if there is no top at all.

There were 36 pages of instructions which took us through Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas. We had lunch in Joplin, Missouri in a restored building in downtown.

The afternoon started out with a bang and a tingle tingle and a glass crash when our headlamp ring and lense fell off on one of the rough roads.

We finished with a 14 and 10th place. The deal is to continue to be consistant and turn in a great score and one can rocket to the top!

We’ll see!

From the road,

Corky

For Pictures of the entire GR3 build, visit the gallery !

Code name GR 3 is the new Honest/Coker 32 Ford roadster pick up, and it was just finished Saturday morning by Greg Cunningham, Mike Goodman, Delton and Jim Scott, Keith Brown and Andrew Givens. David Turner came to touch up clean up his fine “bare metal paint job”. The Kyle Wilson upholstered seats are really fine too! We loaded our unproven, just finished GR3 in the Featherlite gooseneck and headed west to Rogers, Arkansas. Our 700 mile transit got us in to Rogers, Arkansas about midnight. Sunday morning saw great sunshine and lots of Great Race friends,…only this is the VCRA which is the Vintage Car Rally Association started by Rex Gardner and others. It is great to see old friends and make new ones. A number of the Great Race grand champions are here. Gary and Scott Kuck,Teeter and McKone, Bobby Hadsky and G R Pike, Reeder and Stone and of course my new navigator, Greg Cunningham. The Rally is organized well and spirits are high to have a great time!

Our new truck did very well today. Original 32 Ford steering sector now appears to be fine after Honest Mike Goodman expert adjustments. GR3 appeared to be the talk of the rally. All seem to like the stance, the bare metal, the extended cab and of course the tires as we all know that it is “all about the tires” !!!!

Team Mom, Ms Theresa saved our patookskas with our forgotten essentials ….as she says it…”Mom’s the bomb!”

Greg and I rallied well together. This is the first time I have rallied with someone other than Theresa in a long while. Greg does great, but I did miss getting to kiss the navigator when we get a good score though! Oh yeah, we had a 4, 3, 1, and a 1 for an age factored 6 second day to place 9 out of about 60 cars. Greg and I both feel good about the day since it was our very first time rallying together not to mention the very first time GR3 was on the road.

We know where 3 seconds of the 6 came from so, here we go! 5 days of rallying in the Hemmings VCRA rally here in Arkansas!

Until later!

From the road,

Corky

For Pictures of the entire build visit the gallery !

(June 19, 2008) a fleet of slick full-size Chevrolets invade the Coker Tire headquarters in Chattanooga,TN. The club consists of only 1965 and 1966 Chevy big cars and left quite an “impression” on the show field, while they toured and visited our headquarters. Super sports and rare caprices were among this one of a kind tour. Visit our photo gallery for more highlights from this cool tour.