Transcript
WEBVTT
00:00:01.762 --> 00:00:10.515
Welcome to another In Wheel Time podcast, a 30-minute mini version of the In Wheel Time Car Show that airs live every Saturday morning 8 to 11 am, central.
00:00:10.515 --> 00:00:24.809
Hey, welcome everybody to the In Wheel Time Car Talk Show and welcome also to Hewlett Park in Granbury, texas and the Lone Star Street Rod Association's 49th annual state run.
00:00:24.809 --> 00:00:34.676
This is the In Real Time Car Talk Show, and just ahead we've got more attendees from this weekend's big I guess you could call it a cruise inn, yeah, although some, I guess, stay overnight.
00:00:34.716 --> 00:00:36.078
But whatever the case may be, we did.
00:00:36.078 --> 00:00:38.859
It's a big show today and again tomorrow.
00:00:38.859 --> 00:00:44.883
Our regular features, including the new car review, jeff's weekly unique feature.
00:00:45.643 --> 00:00:53.267
We just did that, including the new car review Jeff's weekly unique feature, upcoming events, racing calendar, auto history, all on today's In Real Time Car Talk Show.
00:00:53.267 --> 00:00:57.268
Howdy, and thank you for joining us today, along with Mike out of this world, mars.
00:00:57.268 --> 00:01:05.332
We need more Jeff Zekin and our very special mental therapist, david Ainsley.
00:01:05.332 --> 00:01:07.653
I'm, don Armstrong, glad you could join us today.
00:01:07.653 --> 00:01:09.834
Thank you, david, for all you do.
00:01:09.834 --> 00:01:14.316
Do I still need this little hard drive thing, gizmo?
00:01:14.316 --> 00:01:16.177
He's going to put it on the other hard drive.
00:01:16.177 --> 00:01:16.957
Okay, that's fine.
00:01:16.957 --> 00:01:35.091
So anyway, just to clarify, we've had some computer issues this morning, so that's why you're not listening to our regular open, but you will hopefully here in the next hour and a half, because David's been working feverishly on establishing that little thing that we've got.
00:01:35.091 --> 00:01:39.590
Yeah, so at any rate, mr Barnes, it's time for our next guest.
00:01:39.590 --> 00:01:41.527
This is a very special guest.
00:01:42.219 --> 00:01:47.691
This is Mr the man, Mr Ninn Hewlett of Hewlett Park fame.
00:01:47.712 --> 00:01:53.251
There you go, and past mayor of Granbury and Corvette owner.
00:01:53.840 --> 00:01:54.644
A Corvette owner.
00:01:54.644 --> 00:01:57.626
Yes, sir, Put that microphone right up there next to your mouth.
00:01:57.626 --> 00:01:58.248
There you go.
00:02:00.263 --> 00:02:01.287
You've been in the news before.
00:02:01.287 --> 00:02:02.566
You know how that microphone thing works.
00:02:02.587 --> 00:02:06.566
Oh yeah, well, I play music around town too, so I should know better, I should know how to do that.
00:02:07.079 --> 00:02:09.228
Well, you're just a jack-of-all-trades.
00:02:10.263 --> 00:02:11.687
You've got to do what you've got to do to make money.
00:02:11.879 --> 00:02:16.468
So I want to know first of all the Hewlett Park named after you.
00:02:16.830 --> 00:02:18.973
No, sir, it's spelled different.
00:02:18.973 --> 00:02:24.092
But everybody they put it on me, they put it on me, they said that's your park over there, isn't it?
00:02:24.112 --> 00:02:25.555
I said, well, no, it's not my park, absolutely.
00:02:25.634 --> 00:02:27.807
It is when things are going wrong, it's not my park.
00:02:27.807 --> 00:02:29.283
When things are going right, that's my park.
00:02:29.966 --> 00:02:31.591
Today is your park Today is my park.
00:02:32.360 --> 00:02:33.525
So you're the former mayor.
00:02:33.525 --> 00:02:36.206
Yes sir, yes sir, I served for 10 years here in Granbury 10
00:02:36.227 --> 00:02:37.069
years.
00:02:37.069 --> 00:02:47.967
Actually, I said you know what.
00:02:47.967 --> 00:02:49.566
You don't have to say anymore.
00:02:49.566 --> 00:02:50.328
I'm all for it.
00:02:50.328 --> 00:02:52.507
We had Tammy Dooley on board.
00:02:52.507 --> 00:02:54.627
Tammy Dooley is just super.
00:02:54.627 --> 00:02:56.346
You're going to be hearing from her later on.
00:02:56.346 --> 00:03:00.206
She does a great job of promoting this thing.
00:03:00.580 --> 00:03:03.122
Along with her husband Tom Mike.
00:03:03.122 --> 00:03:03.846
Tom.
00:03:03.846 --> 00:03:04.820
Today it's Tom.
00:03:04.820 --> 00:03:09.549
Today it's Tom, tom Dooley, tom Dooley, work with us.
00:03:09.549 --> 00:03:10.110
We're old.
00:03:10.131 --> 00:03:10.872
The jokes are old.
00:03:10.872 --> 00:03:11.752
That's a good one.
00:03:11.752 --> 00:03:12.455
That's a good one.
00:03:13.001 --> 00:03:14.687
We even have a quartet coming in to sing it.
00:03:14.900 --> 00:03:16.183
I think I've told her that before.
00:03:16.183 --> 00:03:16.806
Yeah yeah.
00:03:16.806 --> 00:03:18.169
Exactly, we love.
00:03:18.189 --> 00:03:18.811
Tammy Dooley.
00:03:18.811 --> 00:03:29.007
And, yeah, and she's a great spokesperson for this town.
00:03:29.026 --> 00:03:30.171
Yes, she is, and class act and we love her dearly.
00:03:30.171 --> 00:03:30.634
She's like our sister.
00:03:30.634 --> 00:03:32.322
Well, she's the best in the state and probably outside the state.
00:03:32.322 --> 00:03:35.670
She's like the little bunny.
00:03:35.670 --> 00:03:37.987
You can't run her down.
00:03:37.987 --> 00:03:39.276
I challenge people.
00:03:39.276 --> 00:03:40.181
I said overload her.
00:03:40.181 --> 00:03:41.167
I don't think you can do it.
00:03:41.167 --> 00:03:41.951
No, exactly.
00:03:41.972 --> 00:03:43.180
You cannot overload Tammy Dutley.
00:03:43.180 --> 00:03:46.591
That was a find and a win on that deal.
00:03:46.591 --> 00:03:49.419
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah so tell me about your Corvette.
00:03:49.419 --> 00:03:50.141
Is it here, Well?
00:03:50.402 --> 00:03:52.268
no, I actually got grandkids.
00:03:52.268 --> 00:03:56.099
So I told he called me this morning, actually called me apologize.
00:03:56.099 --> 00:03:57.281
He said then I didn't know.
00:03:57.281 --> 00:04:01.506
It was seven o'clock when I was calling you and I said, well, he said, did I get you out of bed?
00:04:01.506 --> 00:04:05.330
I said no, I got grandkids in town, so I'm out of bed already.
00:04:05.330 --> 00:04:10.456
But we had to haul them up here too, so we came in there Need a little more room.
00:04:10.539 --> 00:04:15.280
We came in a bigger vehicle, but I have a 71 and I have a 2003.
00:04:15.280 --> 00:04:22.483
The 03 is what I drive around town and people don't believe it's got 245,000 miles on it, wow yes.
00:04:22.483 --> 00:04:25.625
And people look at it and say, well, that thing's like brand new.
00:04:25.625 --> 00:04:29.389
And I say, well, there's a lot of parts that's been changed out on it because they wore out.
00:04:29.389 --> 00:04:32.831
But my 71, I've had it for.
00:04:32.831 --> 00:04:35.134
It's been through about three restorations.
00:04:35.134 --> 00:04:39.617
It's going through one right now and my wife says does that thing even run?
00:04:40.100 --> 00:04:47.336
I said yes, so I have to pull it out of the garage every now and then just to show her that it runs, so that she doesn't put it by the curb and have it picked up at.
00:04:47.355 --> 00:04:49.762
You know bulk pickup day or something, is it a?
00:04:49.802 --> 00:04:50.786
coupe or is it a roadster?
00:04:50.786 --> 00:05:00.411
It's a coupe, you know, okay, yeah, and engine it was a 454 car but it's actually got a 400 in it now.
00:05:00.411 --> 00:05:03.112
So there's a lot of things that aren't correct in it.
00:05:03.112 --> 00:05:04.673
But there's a lot of things that aren't correct in it.
00:05:04.673 --> 00:05:12.617
But there's a lot of things that are the windows are still correct, the gas tank you know a lot of people look at that it's still correct in it, got a lot of correct stuff in it.
00:05:12.637 --> 00:05:20.091
but you see correct wheels and I appreciate all of that right I'm and my car is a 2001 corvette.
00:05:20.091 --> 00:05:22.158
Right, and it's not all correct.
00:05:22.158 --> 00:05:25.387
Right, because it's got the wheels on it that I want to have on it.
00:05:25.387 --> 00:05:28.466
Right, it's got certain things that are mine that I like about the car.
00:05:28.487 --> 00:05:30.050
That's the way I am Making you yeah.
00:05:30.360 --> 00:05:36.528
And you know I appreciate all the original cars out there, Numbers, all that I got, all that yeah.
00:05:37.019 --> 00:05:38.064
A lot of appreciation for that.
00:05:38.064 --> 00:05:38.668
That's hard to do.
00:05:39.408 --> 00:05:46.992
Yeah, there's something to be said for that right, and I want a car that is mine, that's yours, I'm gonna make it mine yeah, and that's uh, that's mine.
00:05:47.112 --> 00:05:49.675
I uh, I graduated in 71, I got this 71.
00:05:49.675 --> 00:05:52.495
My kids, years ago, found this car and it was a.
00:05:52.495 --> 00:05:53.836
It was a disaster.
00:05:53.836 --> 00:05:56.281
And they said here, dad, we bought this for your birthday.
00:05:56.360 --> 00:05:59.086
And I said well, thanks and I looked at it.
00:05:59.086 --> 00:06:01.571
I said yeah, I appreciate it, kids.
00:06:02.333 --> 00:06:06.591
but and I'm and I've kept it because I've had opportunity I've had 13 Corvettes.
00:06:06.591 --> 00:06:09.629
I retired from General Motors as an executive for them.
00:06:09.629 --> 00:06:12.728
As a matter of fact, I was the assistant plant manager out here at the plant.
00:06:12.767 --> 00:06:13.470
Arlington plant.
00:06:13.649 --> 00:06:18.887
Arlington plant, but I've traveled all around and you might know this, I was a personal friend of Will Cooksey.
00:06:20.040 --> 00:06:21.045
Why do I know that name?
00:06:21.079 --> 00:06:21.862
Will Cooksey.
00:06:21.862 --> 00:06:23.846
They designed a car after him.
00:06:23.846 --> 00:06:26.312
I don't know how many they made, but he signed it.
00:06:26.312 --> 00:06:28.848
He was the plant manager of the Bowling Green plant.
00:06:28.848 --> 00:06:30.906
But when I met him I was a student.
00:06:30.906 --> 00:06:44.468
I was a co-op student for GM and I met him as a professor and then he went on to go into the plants and start running some of the plants and stuff and he went to the Kansas plant which I was at at that time, to the Kansas plant which I was at at that time, and he had an opportunity.
00:06:44.827 --> 00:07:00.930
Will Cooksey raced Corvettes and he was 6'7" and so he helped design the C5 so that a larger person could get in and out of them and, as you know, a large person can get in and out of the cars.
00:07:00.930 --> 00:07:02.826
Now my 71, sometimes people want to set in.
00:07:02.826 --> 00:07:03.932
I said, well, I hope you can get out of the cars.
00:07:03.932 --> 00:07:05.399
Now my 71, sometimes people want to set in.
00:07:05.399 --> 00:07:12.185
I said, well, I hope you can get out of it, because once they get down in the cockpit of them older ones, it's hard to get out of them.
00:07:12.185 --> 00:07:13.324
You've got to roll out of them.
00:07:13.324 --> 00:07:20.505
Will Cooksey he was, like I said, the plant manager of Bowling Green for several years Probably could have been the mayor of Bowling Green.
00:07:20.505 --> 00:07:22.507
Everybody loved him and he loved Corvettes.
00:07:22.507 --> 00:07:27.273
They Bowling Green, everybody loved him and he loved Corvettes and they did.
00:07:27.273 --> 00:07:33.809
They made a Wilcoxie Corvettes and I forget how many they made, but there's a couple people in town that have with the Cooksey signature on them and stuff.
00:07:33.809 --> 00:07:37.908
How did you end up here in Granbury coming from all?
00:07:38.019 --> 00:07:38.802
that Working for GM.
00:07:39.105 --> 00:07:40.088
I traveled all around.
00:07:40.088 --> 00:07:48.853
I was at that plant twice and I lived up the Metroplex the first time and at that time it was a car plant and I was with the car division.
00:07:49.380 --> 00:07:51.086
Did they make Impalas back then?
00:07:51.086 --> 00:07:51.910
Yes, yes.
00:07:52.459 --> 00:07:52.800
They made.
00:07:52.800 --> 00:07:59.588
Yeah, it was a BOC is what they called Buick Old Mobile Cadillac, you know and they had one in Missouri and I transferred.
00:07:59.588 --> 00:08:10.550
I got transferred to this plant here and, like I said, as a manager you were under an umbrella of a certain division back then and I was at the car division.
00:08:10.550 --> 00:08:17.096
So then when I was here at the Arlington plant, they decided to go to truck and bus, start making the SUVs and all that.
00:08:17.096 --> 00:08:23.079
Well, I had to find a home or they found me a home to go someplace else because I wasn't with the truck and bus division.
00:08:23.880 --> 00:08:31.903
Shortly after that I went back to the Kansas plant actually, and they reorganized and they put it all under one umbrella so you could work with any of them.
00:08:31.923 --> 00:08:35.371
It was all just GM, you know and so I said, hey, I got to go back.
00:08:35.371 --> 00:08:46.000
I was actually looking at the opportunity to be the plant manager of the new Kansas plant that they were building for the Pontiacs, and they said you know you're making a mistake, you're going to have this plant.
00:08:46.000 --> 00:08:48.000
I said, I know, but I want to go back to Texas.
00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:53.888
I was homesick for Texas, I'd only been here about five years and so I came back.
00:08:53.888 --> 00:09:03.024
They gave me the opportunity and I came back as a director for the material department up here in Arlington and things worked out pretty good.
00:09:03.024 --> 00:09:23.548
I got my promotion and I lived up in the Metroplex then, and then I said I want to live on a lake somewhere and so I started shopping around and I drove halfway to Granbury one day and I said I don't know if I want to drive that distance, and the next time another guy, a realtor, you know they're.
00:09:24.028 --> 00:09:24.711
Oh yeah.
00:09:24.750 --> 00:09:26.759
Come on out here, I'll buy you lunch and all that.
00:09:26.759 --> 00:09:37.731
So I headed on and I made it all the way out here and I found one of these little homes on a canal and I just fell in love with it and I said I, I want to, I want to retire here.
00:09:37.731 --> 00:09:38.654
And I did been here ever since.
00:09:38.654 --> 00:09:41.123
And I've been here ever since and I've served the community.
00:09:41.123 --> 00:09:46.381
I still serve on a lot of the uh, uh, non-profits and things like that and things right.
00:09:46.381 --> 00:09:52.261
I mean it's a great community to be involved in because you know you're given that, but they give back to so many people.
00:09:52.261 --> 00:09:54.485
This, this community, is a giving community.
00:09:54.485 --> 00:10:05.923
It's just unbelievable how how this community is and and most of the stories you hear when you ask people how you got to grandberry, they said we just come through and we fell in love with it, just like that.
00:10:05.923 --> 00:10:09.169
And and they said we got to find a home here it's easy to do.
00:10:09.451 --> 00:10:13.702
It is you got the lake, you got the downtown area with the square down there.
00:10:13.702 --> 00:10:15.985
You've got a beautiful park like this.
00:10:15.985 --> 00:10:18.167
This is not the main thoroughfare.
00:10:18.167 --> 00:10:23.572
You've got to kind of zoom off to the right just a little bit from the highway, and this is a little pocket park over here.
00:10:23.572 --> 00:10:24.753
That's perfect for this show.
00:10:24.952 --> 00:10:27.014
And we've got Tammy Dooley and you've got Tammy.
00:10:27.034 --> 00:10:29.037
Dooley, it's not too good about that.
00:10:30.220 --> 00:10:31.924
And her husband, Tom, and her husband.
00:10:31.965 --> 00:10:32.505
Tom Dooley?
00:10:32.505 --> 00:10:33.889
Yeah, tom Dooley.
00:10:33.889 --> 00:10:35.352
Now I haven't met him yet.
00:10:35.352 --> 00:10:37.246
She said that she was going to bring him to the show.
00:10:37.366 --> 00:10:38.090
Oh, yeah, he followed.
00:10:38.090 --> 00:10:41.850
When we hired her we knew we was getting him too.
00:10:41.850 --> 00:10:49.164
See, they ran the big carnival or the deal out in Odessa, which was a big facility and they were going to retire from it.
00:10:49.164 --> 00:10:57.066
I knew Tammy from prior things up in the Glen Rose area and I just introduced her to some people.
00:10:57.066 --> 00:11:03.528
I said you don't have to hire because of me, but listen to this lady and she sold herself and I knew she would.
00:11:03.528 --> 00:11:07.407
She sold herself to this community and they she.
00:11:07.407 --> 00:11:09.052
She blames me a lot of times.
00:11:09.133 --> 00:11:11.039
I said no, tammy, you did that on your own.
00:11:11.179 --> 00:11:16.692
But she said no, no, you brought me here, but she's super and when you hear from her you'll know what I'm talking about.
00:11:16.692 --> 00:11:21.528
She's great For this community and this community, like I said, we've got car clubs.
00:11:21.528 --> 00:11:24.664
I'm in the car club too.
00:11:24.664 --> 00:11:26.865
At Grand Bear We've got over two, three.
00:11:26.865 --> 00:11:29.384
A lot of them are here today with their cars.
00:11:29.384 --> 00:11:31.687
And then I'm in the Corvette Club too.
00:11:31.687 --> 00:11:32.629
Our Corvette Club's growing.
00:11:32.629 --> 00:11:35.815
We've got almost 100 members in our Brazos River Corvette Club.
00:11:35.815 --> 00:11:38.687
The car club is huge out here.
00:11:38.687 --> 00:11:40.366
They go around all over.
00:11:40.366 --> 00:11:42.086
They've got events every week.
00:11:43.261 --> 00:11:48.587
I understand that Arlington is about to expand another half a billion dollars.
00:11:48.659 --> 00:11:52.130
That's the largest plant in the world, wow.
00:11:52.130 --> 00:11:57.647
The auto plant in the world, right there, the arlington plant, and they build all the suvs.
00:11:57.647 --> 00:11:59.134
People say, well, where else they build?
00:11:59.134 --> 00:12:00.740
They don't build them anywhere else, but they're.
00:12:00.740 --> 00:12:07.250
They work around the clock and they also stamp out all their own sheet metal and stuff so that that's a big unusual itself.
00:12:07.269 --> 00:12:18.212
Well, that's a big thing in itself because you know you sell all them parts to all these body shops and everything all over the world and that's where they get all their vendors doors, hoods, sure, all that for the msuvs, you know.
00:12:18.212 --> 00:12:24.971
So it's, it's, it's a large plant, it's big, it's, it's growing they're gonna make it bigger it's gonna be bigger.
00:12:25.211 --> 00:12:27.725
It's gonna be bigger well, there's well, that's more jobs.
00:12:27.725 --> 00:12:28.889
Yeah, yeah more jobs.
00:12:28.928 --> 00:12:30.231
It's a you know I've.
00:12:30.231 --> 00:12:31.501
I worked at a lot of plants.
00:12:31.501 --> 00:12:33.606
I went back in the in the 70s and stuff.
00:12:33.626 --> 00:12:41.591
I worked at plants that had a pretty hostile union, you might say, or stuff like that up in the Detroit areas and worked in Canada some and all over.
00:12:41.591 --> 00:12:46.871
I never found a plant that was better to work for, though as the Arlington plant.
00:12:46.871 --> 00:12:53.293
They were all a team, and later on GM went to the team concept, but they were already doing it here in Arlington.
00:12:53.293 --> 00:12:54.384
They were working as a team.
00:12:54.384 --> 00:13:04.168
You could go out and build cars and go out and have a few drinks with somebody and think I don't know about this these are the guys putting the parts on the car.
00:13:04.168 --> 00:13:06.586
They didn't care, they were all family.
00:13:06.586 --> 00:13:13.684
I learned a lot just going out on the line and just visiting with people all the time and saying, hey, what do you think?
00:13:13.684 --> 00:13:14.126
This and that?
00:13:14.126 --> 00:13:19.168
And they would tell me, and I'd go to staff meetings and they'd think I was the smartest person in the world.
00:13:19.910 --> 00:13:20.793
Well, I got it from the people.
00:13:20.960 --> 00:13:22.486
And the same thing with the city.
00:13:22.486 --> 00:13:30.446
When the city needed things, you know, I'd tell them about things that people had been talking about out in the community and they'd say, wow, I never thought of that.
00:13:35.682 --> 00:13:37.006
Well, you get out in the city and you talk to the people.
00:13:37.006 --> 00:13:37.490
Get out and find out.
00:13:37.490 --> 00:13:38.615
Same thing as running a corporation.
00:13:38.615 --> 00:13:39.477
I went to a plant that no longer exists in.
00:13:39.498 --> 00:13:39.860
Janesville, oh yeah.
00:13:40.360 --> 00:13:42.948
My brother worked at the Janesville plant until he retired.
00:13:44.461 --> 00:13:46.448
And he introduced me to a lot of people there.
00:13:46.448 --> 00:13:54.602
I got to see how the vehicles were built out there and it was the same kind of camaraderie.
00:13:54.602 --> 00:14:10.374
We've got this going for an end result and there it is right there and it was really eye-opening and a pleasant thing to see, because all you think is a big sweatshop with guys, you know, putting on wheels all day and all night.
00:14:10.374 --> 00:14:14.417
No, it doesn't work that way and you know there's a lot to be said for that.
00:14:14.557 --> 00:14:24.504
It is, and you know it takes that person that wants to be there all day long and do nothing but put that bolt on.
00:14:24.524 --> 00:14:25.907
Well, Jeff worked at a plant.
00:14:25.927 --> 00:14:26.246
Yeah, I did.
00:14:26.267 --> 00:14:27.168
Fisher Body, fisher Body.
00:14:27.168 --> 00:14:28.490
That's back when they had a separation.
00:14:28.490 --> 00:14:34.177
There again they had Fisher Body and some of the plants were divided by a railroad track right inside the plant.
00:14:37.340 --> 00:14:40.720
Some were divided by like a mile because we did it from the firewall back and then they took it over to the Cadillac plant and they married it to the chassis.
00:14:41.000 --> 00:14:42.124
How goofy was that?
00:14:42.124 --> 00:14:44.311
To truck a frame over to another plant.
00:14:44.779 --> 00:14:47.870
Well you painted the car from the firewall back and then you shipped the fenders.
00:14:47.870 --> 00:14:50.086
You've got to send them over there.
00:14:51.039 --> 00:14:56.985
Railroad cars they did it with when I look at that I think why didn't I think of all that you know, but somebody you know?
00:14:56.985 --> 00:14:58.750
Back in the days that was the way you did business.
00:14:58.789 --> 00:15:02.578
But now it's all done that Arlington plant it's all done right there, just in time, now, yeah.
00:15:03.101 --> 00:15:04.346
Yeah, they stamped their sheet metal.
00:15:04.346 --> 00:15:17.643
There again, you know you used to stamp what happened.
