Lynn Hickey Dodge

[Cohiba]

Hey All....

Wow...I remember back in the 80's and 90's Lynn Hickey and his Dodge/Chrysler/Plymouth dealership. The commercials having him and Tom Park...(I remember in the late 70's Tom doing commercials for Courtesy Toyota(Mid-West/Del City) and when I lived in Galveston he did commercials in S.E. Texas). Up in the giant crane inside a van....didn't Evel Knievel do some commercials??

Anyways....the reason for my post. What really happened to Lynn Hickey and his dealership? Why did it close? Did he die, retire, forced out of business or what????

I remember a few folks I personally knew buying Dodge and Dakota trucks from him. Just for funnies...is Tom Park still alive and kicking?

Sooooo...give me the scoop. When I drive by the old place/Sam's, I'll look at it and really know what happened.

Thanks!!!

[scottk]

Lynn Hickey passed in December 2012.

My research shows that he started his dealership in 1970 after working at Dub Richardson Ford. Lynn Hickey Dodge was the top Dodge dealership in the early 90's and many remember him for his "off the wall" commercials with explosions and vans on a crane.

Lynn sold the dealership and retired from the car business in 1996.

As for Tom Park, he is the president of Tom Park Media, and still doing advertising/marketing for auto dealerships. http://www.tomparkmedia.com/
His CFO just so happens to be Wade Hickey.

[bucktalk]

I did some work for Lynn Hickey at his ranch near Sayre, Ok many years ago. When we first met, face to face, at his ranch he was NOT what I expected. He was quite, kind and very easy to work for. I had anticipated an forceful, over-the-top personality from Lynn but that was NOT what I experienced my few weeks working for him. I'm not sure if he was just in a reserved mood or if that was his true personality.

[OKCRT]

Hey All....

Wow...I remember back in the 80's and 90's Lynn Hickey and his Dodge/Chrysler/Plymouth dealership. The commercials having him and Tom Park...(I remember in the late 70's Tom doing commercials for Courtesy Toyota(Mid-West/Del City) and when I lived in Galveston he did commercials in S.E. Texas). Up in the giant crane inside a van....didn't Evel Knievel do some commercials??

Anyways....the reason for my post. What really happened to Lynn Hickey and his dealership? Why did it close? Did he die, retire, forced out of business or what????

I remember a few folks I personally knew buying Dodge and Dakota trucks from him. Just for funnies...is Tom Park still alive and kicking?

Sooooo...give me the scoop. When I drive by the old place/Sam's, I'll look at it and really know what happened.

Thanks!!!

I'm pretty sure he had those pop up tire shredders installed at one time. Once you crossed into the lot it was like a shark feeding frenzy and no way to back out. Crazy!

[Urbanized]

^^^^^^^^
They also had a habit of "losing" keys during trade-in evaluations.

[stile99]

One thing I know about Tom Parks is at one point, he was EVERYWHERE. I learned this when I lived in Kansas City for awhile, and there he was hawking cars. Some other guy who I think did jewelry commercials here was doing carpet commercials there.

Tom Parks basically had an area (Texas was also mentioned) where he went around shooting commercials. They were very rarely done live (well, it was live at the time of filming, at least), though occasionally he would do an event where he was indeed there and they would do live shots. I remember one time for Lynn Hickey they said there were there live. This was on a Saturday, and Thursday had been a pretty nice (but windy) day, and then Friday snow fell. And I don't mean a couple flakes, either, it was a legit snow event, leaving piles behind, piles that were still very much intact Saturday morning when Tom was "live at Lynn Hickey Dodge" with the sun shining, the balloons blowing wildly, and not a flake (of snow, at least) in sight.

[Bellaboo]

Worked with a woman back in 1986 who traded in a used car for a new one. Well, later that day she decided not to keep it and took it back. When she got her trade in back it had 30,000 less miles on it. Not sure of the make and model but the rumor surfaced that it had happened to others. If memory serves.

[mkjeeves]

I bought a car there at least once, knew his brother and played golf with him a few times.

It was a zoo! During negotiations where we countered each other a few times, with them letting the clock run a good long while each time, we were sitting in a glass cube waiting for the sales guy to return and let us know about our last offer. Instead, they announced our names and congratulations on buying a car on their loadspeaker, with bells and whistles of course.