23. The Last Giants of America's Roadsides - The Story Behind the Muffler Men with Steve Dashew

The Story Behind America's Muffler Men with Steve Dashew

Long before Steve Dashew became known for designing some of the world's most capable offshore cruising yachts, he accidentally helped create one of America's most recognisable pieces of roadside culture.

In this chapter of the Dashew Talking Books, host Sue Grant steps away from boats to uncover the remarkable story behind the towering fiberglass figures that became known as the Muffler Men, along with the famous Uniroyal Gals, giant dinosaurs, cowboys and Paul Bunyan statues that once stood outside service stations, restaurants and businesses across North America. 

Steve explains how what began as a struggling winter sideline for a small boatbuilding business quickly became something far bigger. As he says, "this started like most things we've been involved with... we never intended it to be in the display business."

The story begins with a tiny classified advert in the Los Angeles Times, a handful of fiberglass moulds, and an opportunity that few people would have recognised. Within a few years, Steve found himself pitching directly to the senior marketing executives of some of America's largest corporations, despite being just twenty-one years old. Looking back, he admits, "I had no fear. I didn't know what you couldn't do."

The episode explores how one Paul Bunyan statue installed outside a Las Vegas service station reportedly doubled fuel sales almost overnight, leading to national publicity and eventually orders from major brands including Texaco, Phillips 66, Sinclair and Uniroyal. Steve recalls the moment Texaco placed an order for hundreds of figures, transforming what had started as a small seasonal business into a nationwide manufacturing operation. 

Along the way, Steve recalls designing giant cowboys, dinosaurs, pirates, restaurant mascots and the famous Uniroyal Gal, while solving the surprisingly complex challenges of transporting, erecting and marketing these enormous fibreglass figures across the United States. Looking back, he describes the business simply as "great fun" before reflecting, "I had no idea what a wonderful business we had."

The conversation also follows the rise and eventual decline of the fiberglass giant industry, explaining why the business changed direction and how Steve ultimately left it behind before embarking on the next chapter of his career. Ironically, decades later, the very figures once dismissed as roadside advertising have become sought-after pieces of Americana, celebrated in museums, books and newspaper features across the United States. 

Whether you've spotted one standing proudly beside an old highway, photographed one on Route 66, or have never heard of a Muffler Man before, this episode reveals one of the most surprising chapters in Steve Dashew's extraordinary career. It's a story of entrepreneurship, ingenuity and accidental success that began with a small boatyard, detoured through giant fibreglass roadside icons, and became an unlikely part of American cultural history.

Host: Sue Grant
Guest: Steve Dashew

About This Series

The Dashew Talking Books is a special podcast series exploring the life, experiences and ideas of Steve Dashew. Across these conversations, Steve reflects on decades of innovation, offshore cruising, yacht design, business, adventure and the many unexpected stories that shaped his remarkable career.

To explore more of Steve and Linda Dashew's work, visit SetSail for articles, owner stories and technical resources.

You can also watch more conversations and videos on the Dashew Offshore YouTube channel, and explore FPB Motor Yachts at Berthon International to learn more about the cruising yachts that grew from Steve's pioneering design philosophy.

To explore more of Steve's writing, technical articles and cruising knowledge, visit:

SetSail:
SetSail.com

Dashew Offshore YouTube Channel:
YouTube

To learn more about FPB Motor Yachts:

Berthon FPB Motor Yachts:
FPB Motor Yachts

Steve Dashew - Dashew Offshore
Iconic yacht designer and one of the true legends of modern ocean cruising.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome to a series of chapters podcasts featuring the designs, experiences, stories about cruising, business and lots of other subjects that are all to do with Dashu Offshore. Steve and Linda Dashu Offshore. We thought it would be fun, Steve and I, to spend some time going through some of the milestones and we're going to dash backwards and forwards in time. And these books will be called the Dashu Talking books. They will come in chapters and they will be available for you to enjoy, we hope.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Yes, it sounds like it'd be fun.

SPEAKER_03 0:45

There's going to be no schedule, um, and we're going to uh put these uh podcasts, these chapters out, as and when we think of them, and I hope that you will join us. So this chapter of the Dashu talking book with Steve Dashu is uh not about boats at all. It's uh about the muffler men, also known as uh Uniroyal Gals and Paul Bunyans. So Steve, can you um can you just tell me uh how it all started and what they are and uh these things by now are pretty um iconic figures uh in the United States of America.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Oh gosh, you're asking me. You know, we just had the 50th anniversary two days ago of of s of selling our our business, which which that grew into.

SPEAKER_03 1:38

Seriously?

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Yeah, it was I just just realized it was uh June 16th, 1976, three o'clock in the afternoon. Uh we didn't get we didn't get any money for or much money, but we got off the hook at the bank and the bonding company, which I was very happy to do. So um this started like most things uh we've been involved with with the boat business, and that is we had never intended it to be in in the display business, but uh I had a little boat company in uh San Pedro, trying uh California, trying to do some maintenance work and and uh keep a couple guys employed and balance that with going to school and and partying. And um uh it was very, very hard going in the wintertime. So we thought we'll um look for something else, and and we've had a couple of negative outcomes, I think we tested, and then somebody saw an ad in the LA Times, uh three-line ad for a guy named Bob Pruitt who wanted to sell his um display business. So uh I didn't think it would be interest to us, but I had some time, I gave him a call. And it turns out he was a cowboy, or he sponsored cowboys, and he his main business was building trailers to tow your horses around in, and they they made fiberglass tops, and somehow he had gotten into the display business and had three or four molds, and he wanted, I think, eighteen thousand dollars for the business, which is a lot of money then.

SPEAKER_03 3:02

And and this was Paul Bunyan, was it?

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Actually, he had uh he Paul he had he had the first Paul Bunyan, and he had a life-size quarter horse, a life-size thoroughbred horse, uh, and a and a cow mold, and a giant chicken mold, and that was it.

SPEAKER_03 3:19

So so so so so the Paul Bunyan was a was a mold, it was a fiberglass mold, it wasn't a man.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Yeah, they were they were all well, he was originally a man, but from Minnesota. Right. But um he was straightened all the rivers and and had a a great big ox, and I forgot what he was called, a blue ox called something or other. Babe was his name, I think. Anyway, so we looked at the technology, quote unquote, that was involved, which is basically uh laying peep pieces of fiberglass up into female molds and and then taking all these pieces and frying them uh out and and um the the assembly procedure was very crude. And then you filled the seams and painted them, and we thought we can deal with that.

SPEAKER_03 3:58

So so in your boat yard, you were working on uh GRP, weren't you? You're working with fiberglass.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

Well, this gotta remember, this is in the early the mid-m-1950s. Fiberglass was in its infancy. I I don't want to relive the the work of how we learned about fiberglass, but it was really the hard way. We I put every penny we had into a into a 14-foot uh called an SK boat. They're they were these are a type of drag boats they were that they use on the Colorado River for drag racing and c and water ski racing. And they're these most of them were 18 to 20 feet. I thought maybe there's a market for outboard size ones. So we we got I got some technological help and we built a plug and something that looked halfway decent, we thought to our IM. And when the time came to take the mold off the plug, some our experts had forgotten the mold release. So you know what probably knows what that looks like. Yeah, yeah. Absolute disaster. Um and I don't I didn't want anything more to do with fiberglass after that, but we eventually we had some orders, so we we had to we had to go ahead and and do it over again. But and this time I got intimately involved to where my fingers got sticky and smelly, and which was the situation for a number of years after that. So um we that was the technology was just all hand layup, and and in fact, we were one of Jay Johnson's, he was a Jay Johnson was the fellow that invented the chopper gun. And we knew Jay because he was um in into uh was thinking at that time about building a big catamaran and we were racing small cats. So we had met a couple times, and we agreed that chess, I think was the second chopper gun he'd ever built. Um that was a revolutionary tool. Didn't work for what we were doing because it didn't have good good enough quality control, but um but anyway, the that was the state of the technology in those days. So it was all hand layup.

SPEAKER_03 5:47

So so so anyway, now now you have these molds and you have these. So let's just describe what they are. They're 25 foot tall.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Well, they're they're uh you're you're you're you're in the farming business, so you you know it probably know the difference between a quarter horse and a thoroughbred. Yeah. So we had one of each. And what I know, what I recall is that the thoroughbreds were much harder to assemble because they have very thin, very skinny legs compared to the quarter horse. Uh and then all these pieces were it didn't take it, it was very little technology and and and uh very little skill involved once you had the molds made. Um but um uh we thought this was just a fill-in thing to help us to keep busy in the winter time. So um about eight or ten weeks after we made made the deal and we brought this stuff over to our shop and and uh and they were looking for somewhere else to move to, possibly away from the water, because it looked like maybe there's some potential. Uh, there was a guy called from from uh Chicago, I'm sorry, from from uh Las Vegas. It was an American oil gas station. And he had purchased one of the one of these units, he had it on order with with the with uh the Bob Pruitt and wanted to know when he was going to get his Paul Bunyan, so that's how we made that introduction. And he put the unit up and he doubled his gallonage right away. I mean, literally, they they check every day. They had the the tally sheets and the the the Paul Bunyan goes up and starts selling twice as much fuel.

SPEAKER_03 7:10

And and so could could couldn can we just describe the sort of scale of these guys because they're huge, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01 7:17

Well, they it was six and a half meters long, uh about two meters wide, and I think it weighed about 125 kilos, my record, quite light. And and um so uh the moving them around and and and uh standing them up was actually quite a difficult chore and w and it was we we worked on an and and started building trailers that to transport them and to erect them with a very simple tilting uh mechanism in the trailer. And uh essentially the the there was a steel platform that the that the figure was was bolted to, and it was uh had a long transverse uh axle or pin uh across the trailer that that pivoted on. So you'd you'd you'd move the trailer to where it was right adjacent to wherever you're gonna stand your figure up and to what you were gonna tie up, like your your main sign, usually. Uh back the car up to the uh and the trailer up to where it was gonna end up, tied a couple of lines to the eye bolts and the shoulder that just drove forward, and um that ended up that was my first patent.

SPEAKER_03 8:22

My goodness. So so so this guy's got his Paul Bunyan and he's selling lots of fuel, so then what happens?

SPEAKER_01 8:28

Well, he doubled his fuel sales overnight. So um we got a uh uh there was a a trade industry newspaper uh regional, and they they picked we we called them and they didn't believe us, and we and so anyway they sent somebody down, uh or I think they had they had to come from LA, uh and um and and there was a head about a month later there's a headline, uh it was Larry something rather was the guy's name, stationed in American oil station in Las Vegas, doubled his his uh fuel cells, and it had a picture of of his Paul Bunyan standing by his side. So um we looked at that and we thought maybe there's something here. Had no idea what was going to come. So I was at that time I was 21 years old and uh still in still in school, although I ended up dropping out. And uh I just I I had no fear, I didn't know what you couldn't do. And you're not at that at that age and selling what we had to sell, you're not supposed to go and talk to the senior vice presidents of marketing of the major oil companies in the United States. But that's what we did. And um uh so we had I had a woman, her name was Vi Winslow, who was very much a part of the the the making this program successful. And Vi was a uh she was a in so in some perspectives too, she rem you remind me of Vi. She was a absolute cracker jack. Your work habits are much better, but she was she was a cracker jack at marketing, and so she would put together these these programs and based on on uh starting with this, I think a guy's name was Larry Anderson. Anyway, based on the American Rail Station, and I started knocking on doors and and I was somehow I was able to, like it was Texco, uh, we were able, I think it was a I can't remember what the 17th floor or something in this in the Chrysler building in New York. But I'm I'm in there talking to the first, you know, the normal vice presidents and the senior vice presidents in these big meetings and filled with people. And and um what what we did is we just took some, had an artist take some poster board and airbrush the the photo uh essentially a gas station with the figure standing in front of it. And uh everybody, they were intrigued enough that I sold two or three units to various people that they would test, and they got they got really good results from the test. They I never found out what they were, but that's top secret. But um about a year, a year and a half later, I got a call from Texco and they said, um, come on back tomorrow, we're ready to sign. And I was stunned. I did we were this little tiny company. So they gave us an order for 300 units. And um that was a they had a national advertising program based on the on the the the uh their they called the Texco Big Friend.

SPEAKER_03 11:11

So how so so how how did you go about fabricating 300 of these things?

SPEAKER_01 11:17

Uh well we rented a new building or leased a new building and and um and and we had to make a plug and and a mold, and that that's a story in itself. That was an absolute disaster. And uh I had a uh an old old guy, he's probably old, probably in his forties then. His name was Sasha Schnipman. He was uh uh a Russian immigrant who was a sculptor, fine art sculptor, and um I I didn't know how to control him and he he took three times as long as he was supposed to get this thing built because Texas breathing down my neck for the their national schedule rollout. Um and he made it he scaled it up a little bit, he didn't like the proportions. And what I didn't realize at the time when he scaled it up, it made it just a little bit bigger, and about the the you know when you scale something up, it it's not the the mass doesn't go up linearly, it goes up with a with a square of the increase. So um it was a huge it was about went to from about 200 pounds to 350. And that eventually that that's what killed the program because it was too hard to handle. But um uh we s we we we s uh started producing these, and the biggest hassle with them is where what do you do with them? Because we they wanted us to store them, we agreed to that. We rented a a field um adjacent to our property, and that somebody in the LA for the LA Times, a photographer, came by in a helicopter, landed and and asked asked some questions, took off again, and they uh we have some somewhere some aerial photographs of that field uh with uh all the giants in it. It was it was it was an amazing time. And being being very inexperienced uh in business and and quite young, I had no idea what a wonderful business it was because it was the we had very low overhead, uh the cost of sale was low. I did all the marketing. I was traveling two or three weeks uh every month out, sort of peddling our wares. And we had all these executives that I should not have been able to talk to who were talking to us, and it was just it was great fun. And so uh here here's a an example of the power uh which I what I realized I had in my hands. So Phyllis Petroleum had called, and they wanted a uh it turns out they they had a cowboy in their in their uh marketing program. So they wanted a big cowboy. Well, that's no problem. We can build cowboys easily, which meant we take Paul Bunyan and and give him and take his beard off and put a sombrera on him, and he was a cowboy. He was uh very adaptable, he was a all kind of muffler man, tire man, um he was uh uh my favorite, the more Mortimer E. Snerd, who won't be known, probably not known to your your your audience, but Mortimer E. Snerd was a a character out of Mad Magazine when they first started, which it maybe dates me somewhat. Anyway, um so uh we were we're I'm out in Bartlett's, Oklahoma, which is really the middle of nowhere in the home of Phillips Petroleum, and we've flown uh into the um the airport in um Tulsa. And so uh I'm looking at my watch and it's time to go because I happened to flight to New York and I had meetings with Texaco and Sinclair. And um so I I I wrote my guy's name, we were dealing with the senior vice president. I said, I I'm sorry, but I have to go. He said, Don't worry, we'll hold the plane for you. And I thought, what? So uh I really couldn't leave after he said that. So anyway, we stayed around and discussed some details and and I think they ended up ordering a hundred uh hundred uh uh uh twenty-four cowboys. So um uh now we're we're like 20 minutes late and they're flying me back to the to Tulsa in the in the corporate aircraft. And I think, what's gonna happen? I'm gonna miss my flight, miss my meetings. And there's this big jet. They were fairly new in those days, and I think it was a uh a 737, I think it was a not 737, 727, um the jet with with an engine in the tail as well as on the wings. And it was standing there, engines running, uh ramp coming down, uh run up the ramp, and here's this airplane full of people, and the pa and the stewardesses, one of the stewards had their hands on her hips, like who have they been waiting for? Girls Petroleum was a big customer, I think it was TWA in those days, probably their biggest customer in that part of the world. And they had called and told them to hold the airplane.

SPEAKER_03 15:34

So Wow, and they did.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

They did.

SPEAKER_03 15:37

I I didn't know whether to be embarrassed or chuff, but anyway, um uh that was that was one of my more uh entertaining uh incidents that so so so so so so let's just come on to muffler men today, which I understand in the Dashew family are called skipperoos. Um so what's happened to them now? Because now they're kind of um quite um they're collectibles, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01 16:07

Well, th that there's so much irony Sue in in that w one one of the ways that a lot of our a lot of our customers were individuals. Like you would have a you might have a miniature golf course or or a uh a tax shop or hardware store or whatever, and you put this one unit up of what what whatever we like off our off our our menu, so to speak, our catalog. And they would often get in fights, local zoning fights, people didn't want them. And so the fights themselves would be good uh uh uh traffic generators for the for the establishment, so they enjoyed that. Um and we sometimes had to write letters and occasionally got had to testify in court and stuff. So uh we were sort of always considered the you know the bad guys because we supplied this terrible stuff. And some years later, maybe I don't know, 20, 30 years, it's been over 50 years now, out of the business. But some years later, uh a famous designer, uh Diane von Furstenberg, I think was her name, picked one up and had it refurbished and had it in her garden. Oh wow, as a work of art. And that word got out on that, and I don't know if that started the trend or not, but since that time, which is many years ago, we've had stories in in like Smithsonian Magazine and all sorts of major uh uh mainline magazines and like this this story that somebody sent me that was just in the Los Angeles Times. Uh the big big feature story on on the history of these things. People have written books about them. There have been websites set up. Um there are at least two or three websites that which people came to interview us as as a traffic building thing for their websites, they've gone on to be very successful.

SPEAKER_03 17:50

So yeah, because I mean the LA Times are calling it muffler men are a Route 66 classic, and they're multiplying. So have ho have you guys got one?

SPEAKER_01 18:00

We do not. Um we we what we what I really wanted was one of our dinosaurs, and because that that fits the desert environment. And they've when they've come on the market, they get snapped up pretty quickly. So we we had we had a chance to buy or to pick one up from a Pontiac dealer in in North Carolina that uh we we couldn't put together quickly enough and they wanted it moved. And and there's actually a couple people who who make a business out of buying these old units, refurbishing them for people, and or buying them and reselling them. So we've uh um i where we live it uh it would be frowned on, let's put it that way. It would maybe horizontally not vertical.

SPEAKER_03 18:38

So the dinosaur, why why were they what were they marketing?

SPEAKER_01 18:42

Uh one of the major oil companies um in the U.S. is called Sinclair Oil. And their symbol at the bottom of it, they have sort of a uh odd geometric shape for their normal sign, and and that it's um the the bottom of the sign, right in the center, there's they have a dinosaur symbol. Uh so and now I can that's a name I can remember for some Leo J. Hoare. He was the vice president of marketing. We did all kinds, we thought if there's not an actual in the world, you know, I mean that's got to be the perfect place to sell 3D figures. We never got a single penny out of them. Really? He was happy to to to talk to me and and to we sent him, we sent him an 8-foot and a 12-foot unit, actually, sent them to him and played with those, but they never bought their some of their dealers and distributors did, but um uh we never never sold him uh any hardware. But that was the only one everyone else was successful with.

SPEAKER_03 19:37

So so so so now you're you're getting quite elderly, so you must be 23, 24, 25. Um not yet.

SPEAKER_01 19:45

I have I'm still climbing the top of the ladder, which I'm not supposed to do.

SPEAKER_03 19:49

And um so and everything's going brilliantly. And then what happens?

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Well, so part part of it I I I'm I'm was never I'm never really a very good manager in, or I wasn't very good at hiring people in, or maybe with intentional, but uh, I could never find anybody that could that could sell our stuff, and somehow I just it you know, just like the uh like shooting fish in a barrel for me, uh five or put together a package and I go talk to people and they they say, okay, you know, we'll give you a test. That's all we had to do if excuse me, if they gave us a test, we knew the results were going to be good. So and we were we were starting to have franchises in the this is when franchising was starting to take off in the restaurant business and similar industries. And so we had quite a number of people calling us for uh you know for for proposals to do uh figures for their uh for their the restaurant chains. The one that comes to mind immediately is there was somebody who made a deal with Hanna Barbera for the Yogi Bear characters. Right. It was Yogi Bear's honey fried chicken. And I I'm back in this uh somewhere in North Carolina after driving through all kinds of backcountry roads and and um uh the first thing that they they well after we meet and greet and and they ask a bunch of questions. We like you to test some chicken. And they had they had a company in uh somebody in Chicago, they they had a um they would take other companies uh products and um uh and somehow test them, find out the ingredients, so this company could could uh to could base new formulas on what the opposition was selling. So I I I ate three or four pieces of chicken and um uh had to feign enjoyment, which wasn't too too easy. And um so uh in that I I I re I enjoyed the marketing part of the game and I had friends in most c places in the country, and it didn't make any difference to me whether I whether I was home 'cause I didn't had an apartment and you know, nobody else. And then I met Linda and that sort of changed everything and I didn't want to travel anymore. And she moved to LA where from Salt Lake where she was teaching and Um so I I really uh really didn't want to travel and not not the way I had been. Uh so um w I tried hiring some people from the side sign industry and they could sell onesies and twosies, but nobody for some reason could probably we didn't have the right material for them, but I just didn't find anybody that could that could replace the larger programs and and that's where the real money was because we could instead of building one or two uh for somebody to own the amusement park, perhaps, um, you know, these are chances sell multiples, uh, which was really where our our our revenue came from.

SPEAKER_03 22:39

So then what happened? Did you sell it on or because then you were going into the boat business off oh no no no no no you were going to the building business, which is another chapter, of course, after that.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

Yeah, that was I had no idea what the problem was I had no I I didn't have the experience to realize what a wonderful business we had. It was fun. Um like we would go to trade shows all over the country, um, trade shows for like the restaurant industry or or car dealers or something like that. And so these were the trade shows where people went the people that attended them and the people that worked them were there to have a good time. So there was lots of social interaction and uh a little bit of alcoholic consumption and um sounds stressful to pack up your wares and go home. So um, and at that I I I really didn't like them as I got older, but at that point that was great fun. And and it was like a challenge. You'd be sitting there in this booth, like in this giant building in Chicago on the on the waterfront called McCormick Hall. And if you if you scourge, you had a carpet between your feet and the and the concrete floor. And you would have a square uh three-meter square booth, um, and we'd have big photographs, and we'd usually have a sample of something, um, medium-sized, standing up. And the goal was people that walk by to get them to spend their money with us. And we I'd go out, the the people have started to have chat looking the other direction, and I would get them to come into my booth. And that was that was the challenge of that was great fun. One of the nice things about the business was that uh we got paid deposits on the larger orders, and the deposits really covered our our costs and say our working capital requirements until we shipped material. Um so we did we did not have any any uh any loans at the bank.

SPEAKER_03 24:24

So there was no cash flow problem. So apart from the dinosaurs and the cow the guys in cowboy hats, what else was there? What were the really interesting guys that um you um you were involved with?

SPEAKER_01 24:40

We s we started seeing in the US uh the marketing major major company marketing arms were going to 3D figures uh probably following what the lead that we had opened up. So we had a program with uh Uniroil, U.S. Royal U.S. rubber tires, Miss Uniroyal, uh, and she was built so she had a dress, and the dress came off, and she had a bikini on underneath, which is pretty radical. Seriously. Seriously, yeah. There are some Miss Unoroil still around. Um we uh probably the the biggest franchise uh deal that we that we had, which at the time was in Boise, Idaho, where Linda was from, which we didn't know, uh, was with AN an AW Rootbeer, su subfranchisee that worked with AW and they had something called Papa Burger, Mama Burger, Baby Burger, and Teen Burger. We made that a fourth set of figures for those. Um and probably the the the the key element in that story is that when Linda and I uh were married, um, the night before we were married, I was kind of late getting my bachelor parties in and it was kind of co-ed, and and the bars in that in in this little town in Idaho where Linda was from that we got where we got married, closed at 10.30, and I was drinking um double shots of tequila with bear chasers, and people started making me bets that I couldn't stand up and dance if I kept drinking like that. I won all the bets. But the next morning I was so sick, um literally if it had not been a a late afternoon wedding, I couldn't have made it. So when we left that um that uh and went to when we went to a reception, which was in this little hotel where like you can you can imagine the gunfight taking place. You came down the stairs, long narrow bar, and there were almost bullet holes around. Um but it was no air conditioning, and it was a state with uh that sold alcohol, the only place you could buy alcohol is through the state. It's a terrible cheap champagne, and um it smelled of that, and and I was sick again. So we we left in heading to the hotel we were flying to Hawaii the next day on our honeymoon, and there was an AW root bear stand. And I hadn't I had not been able to keep anything down all day, and I had an AW hamburger, a papa burger, and it it it was tasted really good. So anyway, um so there there were uh I we probably did a program every every couple months for a some sort of franchise, and which got us into building some fiberglass fascia and other things that came along with it. Um we we ended up doing some really large items, uh uh big whales and um. What did you do the whales for? It was a fish franchise. Um and the most difficult part of the business was dealing with the sculptors. And I learned very quickly, don't have anybody on the payroll. Get a fixed price and uh pay them on a on a on a uh the percentage of completion basis with fixed uh marks, just like building a custom yacht. Um and don't get in, don't don't be directly involved because the artists were impossible to Oh, because they got a view about it should look this way and it's not realistic and la la la, yeah. Anyway, so it was um uh we had we had all kinds of programs and we at by the time we started to taper the business off, I was we were probably making presentations once a month to people about you know they were they were trying to set up new businesses.

SPEAKER_03 28:06

So so so did you did so did you go into businesses and you know somebody who was, I don't know, uh selling children's clothes and think and say to them what you need is a 25-foot tall gorilla. Is that how you did it?

SPEAKER_01 28:22

No, actually, um we looked at the business and then we we we we had the scale was of course there were the the issue of was it mobile or fixed? Um most most customers were fixed. Uh we s uh like in the for example the mu the amusement park industry, we we moved a lot of material. Uh or in the restaurant business, we moved a lot of material. All these were fixed. It's really just the the oil industry that uh people that were in the in business service and cars and trucks that wanted the mobile units. Um but the the we just put together, we'd look at look at what their marketing was uh what it was and what they'd done before. And we had a VI had a couple of uh artists that that she said work out to and that would do a present poster board presentation, and I would put these things in a case and carry them on board the airplane, put them inside the the seat, and off I go. And when people saw this stuff, they somehow it just it it it really was it was not a hard sell. They looked at it and they we gotta do this. And the market, the the the we had Sue uh uh most customers ended up giving us endorsements that were really strong. And and when they're when you're a small retail establishment, like the the Larry Anderson, the the the gas station fellow in in Las Vegas, um those those those kind of businesses, they know every day what's happening with their with their sales. So they're it it the it's easy for them to to to point to what happens, and then they would you hear stories about people going stopping to take photographs, and sometimes it was with the cows or steers and the giant chicken or or the the Paul Bunyan type figures were were the the most prevalent talked about. And what we learned how to do as as our quote unquote technology grew was how to adapt the the the original Paul Bunyan figure. So we had uh the original figure had a shirt, we we ended up with a shirtless guy, um, just because, well, you know, for muscle type situations and for sold a lot of Indian figures. Um we had different heads and different tools put in the arms, and so um it was we we kept thinking we should do it.

SPEAKER_03 30:32

And and t tell me, did did the um dinosaur start off as the quarter horse or was that a whole new mold?

SPEAKER_01 30:38

The the the dinosaurs start w were and started off as a twelve-footer. And then we made an eight-footer, and the we w so we probably didn't sell enough to to to make to pay off the c the cost of making the plugs and molds. Because that was a a difficult thing to shape and control.

SPEAKER_03 30:55

No, but it means uh that's that's quite rare, isn't it, to finding a dinosaur.

SPEAKER_01 31:01

Today you can buy uh you can buy plastic, I'm I'm pretty sure they're fiberglass, uh dinosaurs from from distributors who sell them in the sync to the Sinclair dealers. Um you just send them in order and your your unit will come a couple months later. Um but uh uh in the in the olden days, in order for us, we had to we had to have something where we had the home company behind us because otherwise we wouldn't sell enough.

SPEAKER_03 31:26

And so and so what happened to the business in the end? Did it just stop?

SPEAKER_01 31:31

Well what happened in the end is I couldn't find I was un unsuccessful in finding somebody to that could sell the big programs. Um and I had I I didn't want to travel and we moved the business in a different direction, uh, into the construction business, which is a a story in itself, maybe for someday, but it was a we went from a really fun business that cash flowed easily to a a a business in which every job was war.

SPEAKER_03 31:54

And so having having decided that um you were with Linda and you wanted to stay home, and the business um there was nobody who could actually sell the big programs, did you then sell the muffler men?

SPEAKER_01 32:11

No, what happened was that we we um I knew I w it was still a part of our it's still a part of our business, just that it was it was it wasn't getting my attention because we we had to do something else, and we had a lot of I don't know, 15-20 guys working for us. And I I thought I started being coming away, somebody told me about a job in New York state, upper upstate New York, for that Nelson Rockefeller was building a monument to himself and called the Albany South Mall, which at the time was the largest concrete planned to be the largest concrete structure ever made. And in in all of my humility, I thought, well, we can do that. Fortunately, the first the first uh round of bidding failed because of various technical issues um having to do with people fixing the prices, I think. Um and so the the job was was uh was went away um the the prospecting of it, which was a good thing because we would have gotten broke very quickly. Um so uh eventually came back and we that eventually did get the order to supply the equipment. But that opened our eyes to f concrete fiberglass forms, and I had no idea I went from a fun business to to one where you you start every job, but it's gonna be a lit, it's gonna end up as a lawsuit. That's just the nature, even with your friends. Uh you paper yourself, you cross your T's, dot your I's, you cover every everything that happens, every every conversation. Well, I'll say at this point, we went from a really fun business to one that was a bloody fight for survival every day.

SPEAKER_03 33:41

And that is the subject of another chapter. But in the meantime, just um as we sort of finish with the muffler men, these um incredible figures that um are still famous. And so if you're going down Route 66 or um you're in um LA or um around that part of the state, and you see one of these massive figures, just think about Steve, age 21, in his suit in the Texaco building, and um think about um how special that time was. So, so, and that is the story of um the muffler men. So, thank you so much, Steve, for that.