Car Guy Magazine Car Guy Magazine Issue 215 | Page 12

Coker likes to take his 1909 Lozier Great Race
competitor out for a spin occasionally. Naturally,
it rides on Coker tires.

After serving numerous years on the SEMA Board of Directors, Coker assumed the chairmanship of SEMA in 2003, making him the first chairman to come from the Restoration/Street Rod segment of the automotive aftermarket. In 1999, Coker
was named to the ARMO Hall of Fame because of his work as a founding member and former chairman of the organization.
Coker, whose life-long nickname, “Corky,” comes from a character of the newspaper comic strip Gasoline Alley, was born
into the collector car hobby. His father, Harold, started the Coker Tire Company in 1958. Having collected and restored cars
for many years, Harold began to see the need for specialty tires through his interaction with fellow collectors. But his vision
presented an obvious challenge: Would the car collecting and auto restoration hobby grow enough to support this niche antique tire business now and in the future?
Working in the early years with his father, Coker set out to revitalize the vintage tire trade at a time when the industry
was only in its infancy. Coker’s initial job was to find suppliers of antique tires or reproduce tires that were no longer being
manufactured. Then he needed to determine which sizes would be most popular and how to market, sell and distribute them.

10 CarGuyMagazine.com