No celebration of Sunny King Ford’s decades in business would be complete without a tip of the cap and a wave of the flag to its NASCAR ties.
The years following the opening of the Talladega speedway were special, a time when even a small-town car dealership could sponsor a cup car.
E.D. “Sunny” King Jr. was the quintessential car salesman, promoter and sponsor all wrapped into one. Usually sporting a plaid coat, King would flash his million-dollar smile at the Talladega Superspeedway and he’d own the room.
King sponsored a number of drivers, including Donnie Allison of the famed Alabama Gang, Bill Elliott, Ken Schrader and others. During a recent interview with The Anniston Star, Allison recalled King, the Alabama Gang and NASCAR.
“I was very, very, very good friends with Mr. King and Mrs. King. I see Patty occasionally nowadays. I go by and see her whenever I go to Talladega, and talk with her on the phone. I am planning on being there for the anniversary,” Allison said.
Allison said a replica of his No. 27 car will be featured April 28 during the Sunny King centennial celebration from 3-7 p.m at the Anniston City Meeting Center.
“We had a good relationship, I won several races with Sunny King’s name on my car. We ran in front or near the front a lot, we won for Sunny King. A lot of people knew about Sunny King because of the car,” Allison said.
Allison said that King was very knowledgeable about racing.
“When he was alive, he was very hands-on, you could call and talk to him,” he said.
Allison bought a pickup truck from King and agreed to a certain price.
“When I went to pick up the truck, the price was different, it was lower,” he said, adding that King sold him the truck at cost as a token of friendship.
“We ran all over the country — as far west as Riverside, Calif., and as far north as Michigan. At that time, NASCAR had bloomed out pretty good,” Allison said.
“The car we will have there for the 100th anniversary is a replica of the race car. It will be the Thursday after the Talladega race,” he said.
“My wife is raising hell about whether she will let me drive it around Talladega when we come, I still get the urge to drive, I have not forgotten, believe me,” Allison said.
Allison is one of the original members of the Alabama Gang.
“Why we were called the Alabama Gang was not extraordinary. We were just three Alabama boys who wanted to race. It was a marketing tool for the race tracks. The Alabama gang was Red Farmer, Donnie and Bobby [Donnie’s brother]. We’re the original gang, the news media put others in it, they’re honorary members.
Allison said the 1979 Daytona 500 is the most talked-about race ever.
“Ask who won Daytona in 1974, and nobody knows. Everyone knows Richard Petty won in 1979 after Cale Yarborough wrecked me. Petty won seven times, and I gave him three of them. A couple of months ago, I went by Cale’s house in South Carolina. We talked a little bit. We did not talk about the 1979 race,” Allison said.
“The SOB wrecked me, he tried to get under me, I took the bottom lane away. I don’t really think about it much, not until someone brings it up,” Allison said.
Carl Wilson, fleet and commercial sales manager at Sunny King Ford, said the 1979 Daytona 500 was the first race to be televised from start to finish.
“They were trying to win the race on the last lap, Cale Yarborough and Donnie and they got together and wrecked each other and Richard Petty came around them and won the race,” Wilson said.
“But they spun out on the back stretch, they got out of their cars and went to fighting, well then Bobby he came on around to come check on Donnie and seen them fighting, well he gets out and joined in, they were all going at it,” Wilson said.
Wilson said that before King sponsored NASCAR drivers he fielded the Anniston Drag Club in the late ’60s, supporting two Mustangs that would compete in the southeast.
During the first race at Talladega in 1969, King sponsored a sportsman car driven by Bill Ward. The sportsman series was a precursor to the ARCA series of today, Wilson said. “He migrated into the cup cars after that with Donnie,” Wilson said.
Wilson said that King had an affection for racing.
“They went from a small-town car dealership to a world stage, having that exposure, they had started televising NASCAR events, and then it wasn’t until ’79 they ran them flag to flag,” he said.
Wilson said that King had a relationship with the late Junie Donlavey, a team owner who had cars sponsored by Sunny King Ford.
Wilson said that King had a car commercial years ago that said, “From the raceway to the driveway,” capitalizing on the motif, “Win on Sunday, sell on Monday.”
But a lot has changed in the world of NASCAR since King’s sponsorship days. Wilson said that it now takes a minimum of $10 million to sponsor one car.
Wilson said not too long ago a Honda Pilot pulled up to the Ford dealership and both Donnie and Bobby Allison stopped by for a visit.
“It was fun because they sat and told old racing stories, and they bantered back and forth,” Wilson said.
“I’ve got a framed picture at home and it’s the Alabama Gang, it’s Donnie, Bobby and Red, it’s pictures of them racing and one picture of three of them together racing each other, it’s all autographed by each of them,” Wilson said.
Wilson said that the 100th anniversary of the dealership is a milestone.
“Not many dealerships around that can say that, and stay in the same family and not change owners, that’s a big one, even like Long-Lewis, the oldest dealership in the state but the ownership has changed,” Wilson said.
John T. Bryan Jr., president of Sunny King Automotive Group, remembers King’s presence at the Talladega Superspeedway.
Bryan said King loved NASCAR, golf and the car business.
“As sponsoring cars got more and more expensive he would still sponsor cars but he would sponsor the lesser known drivers,” Bryan said.
Bryan said that King would find a way to bring awareness to Sunny King Ford on race days.
“He was good friends with a guy who ran the racetrack back in the day and he had a parade of vehicles in some years around the racetrack,” Bryan said.
“He definitely took advantage of all those people sitting in those seats, they were watching Sunny King before the race,” he said.
Patty King, chairman of the board of the Sunny King Automotive Group, said Sunny made the “perfect” connection between selling automobiles and racing automobiles.
“He made that jump quickly and enjoyed every minute of it, he truly enjoyed it,” she said.
“We became an extension of the raceway, and of course that was such a boost to the economy, when we could get that speedway, it’s just been untold goodwill and blessing and fortune to this whole state,” King said.
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