Legendary Journalist Bill Sanders on Episode 228

Bill Sanders on Episode 228, a legendary journalist who excelled in elevating off-road racing to worldwide recognition. At 92 years old, history was made and retold in this interview. We talk about all the racing, writing and sport that Bill has been a part of. Bill was inducted in the Off Road Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2014. Bill is why we say; legends live at ORMHOF.org.  Be sure to tune in on your favorite podcast app.

4:26 – my first true love was a 1936 Ford three-window coupe flathead 

20:21 – I went to Europe by myself and traveled around for about 11 months on $5 a day.             

29:04 – “Where’s the rest of the slides?” And I said, I’m not the photographer, I’m the editor. 

37:55 – any questions?  “Do the service stations in Baja take credit cards?”

49:15 – these guys from Mexico would bring $50,000 cash in a paper bag to California and buy a truck

1:06:42 – about halfway through the race, the suspension broke, but Jean Calvin had her thermos full of coffee that she always took with her

Special thanks to ORMHOF.org for support and sponsorship of this podcast.

Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.

Transcript

[00:00:00.000] - 

Welcome to Conversations with Big Rich. This is an interview-style podcast. Those interviewed are all involved in the off-road industry. Being involved, like all of my guests are, is a lifestyle, not just a job. I talk to past, present, and future legends, as well as business owners, employees, media, and land use warriors, men and women who have found their way into this exciting and addictive lifestyle we call off-road. We discuss their personal history, struggles, successes, and reboots. We dive into what drives them to stay active and off-road. We all hope to shed some light on how to find a path into this world that we live and love and call off-road.

[00:00:46.130] - 

This episode of Conversations with Big Rich is brought to you by the Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame. The mission of the Hall of Fame is to educate and inspire present and future generations of the off-road community by celebrating the achievements of those who came before. We invite you to help fulfill the mission of the Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame. Join, partner, or donate today. Legends live at ormhof.org.

[00:01:15.580] - Big Rich Klein

On this episode of Conversations with Big Rich, it's my pleasure to interview a longtime enthusiast turned magazine editor, turned racer, turned Baja 1000 winner, and 2014 Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame Inductee Bill Sanders.

[00:01:32.320] - Big Rich Klein

Bill Sanders, it's so great to have this conversation with you. I'm really looking forward to hearing about your history, and thank you for making the time to do this.

[00:01:42.660] - Bill Sanders

Okay.

[00:01:44.040] - Big Rich Klein

So let's get started. And Bill, what is the easiest question I can ask you for most people is, where were you born and raised?

[00:01:53.800] - Bill Sanders

I was born in Sacramento, California, and we lived in Davis until I was five or six. Then we moved to Berkeley, and I went to kindergarten in Davis. We moved to Berkeley. I went to kindergarten again, and then I was raised and lived the rest of my early life in Berkeley.

[00:02:22.890] - Big Rich Klein

Berkeley, it wasn't as a liberal haven that it is nowadays, correct?

[00:02:28.350] - Bill Sanders

Berkeley in those days, was so conservative. People today couldn't believe it. It was a beautiful, it was like a Midwest small city.

[00:02:40.930] - Bill Sanders

It did have Cal was there, which was one thing, but it was really a small town.

[00:02:49.440] - Bill Sanders

There were three junior highs and one high school. Everybody went to the same high school. If you were white, black, Hispanic, whatever, you all went there. You're all friends. There was a department store, Hinks Department Store, which was locally owned. There were one, two, three, four movie theaters, and Bruce Brothers was the big clothing store. Anyway, it was a beautiful... You could walk, go to the movie, walk home at 10:00 at night, and it was extremely safe.

[00:03:29.800] - Big Rich Klein

I think that was probably the case with most of the Bay Area at that time?

[00:03:39.360] - Bill Sanders

Yes, it was.

[00:03:41.110] - Big Rich Klein

Because do you mind me asking how old you are right now?

[00:03:45.580] - Bill Sanders

I'll be 93 in January.

[00:03:49.300] - Big Rich Klein

93 in January. Wow. That's a long, productive life.

[00:03:56.750] - Bill Sanders

Well, I hope it was productive.

[00:03:59.660] - Big Rich Klein

I I think so. Those early years in school, were you a good student?

[00:04:08.550] - Bill Sanders

No.

[00:04:10.050] - Bill Sanders

Up until the 11th grade, I was a good student. After that, I dropped out of high school.

[00:04:20.270] - Big Rich Klein

And what did you... What precipitated that, that dropping out of high school?

[00:04:26.550] - Bill Sanders

I was hanging around with the wrong guys. Okay. However, even those guys, we were all totally interested and fascinated in cars. My first true love was a 1936 Ford three-window coupe flat head, and I bought it from an older couple, and I lowered it, had upholstery done, put skirts on it. Then I had two or three '36 Ford sedans, all within a year and a half span. So we were into cars then.

[00:05:15.050] - Big Rich Klein

And was that flat head? Did you hot rod it up?

[00:05:19.330] - Bill Sanders

No, my next big step was, I think I guess I sold the 36, and I bought a 48 Ford convertible from a young guy in 1950. And I was in the class of 50 in high school.

[00:05:48.180] - Bill Sanders

I dropped out of school and I went to work on the railroad.

[00:05:55.020] - Bill Sanders

And I had worked on the railroad the summer of '49 up in the Feather River, digging ditches. When I dropped out of high school, I went to work on the railroad in the little town of Milpitas at the time, and I was digging ditches and stuff, and I said, I'm not going to do this the rest of my life. I enrolled in Contra Costa Community College in Richmond, which was in the World War II administration buildings of the Richmond shipyard. And a lot of my friends and I started College there. Anyway, I bought a '48 Ford' in 1950. '48 Ford convertible was in pristine condition. I I did upholstery on it, and I pulled the engine at some point and had a guy... I didn't have any facilities to build an engine. I had a guy build a motor for me. I bored and stroke it, poured it in relief, put in new pistons and rods, and I think it was... It wasn't Edelbrock, I can't remember whose intake manifold. I had three Stromberg carburetors, and I had winding heads, aluminum finned heads, and put in Lincoln Zephy gears in the rear end. And when I went to, after I did all I started after I finished at Contra Costa.

[00:08:05.640] - Bill Sanders

I went to University of Oregon and got admitted there. I had to take a test, and none of that would exist today. And I got into Oregon, and I drove the Ford up there, and I joined the Kaisai fraternity, and I did a little drag racing in the Springfield, Oregon, with that car. And then at that point, I got drafted, and the Korean War was on. I got drafted into the army, ended up at Camp San Luis in San Luis Obispo for Basic, and then shipped out to Korea during the Korean War. I'm a Korean War veteran.

[00:08:56.570] - Big Rich Klein

Was that army?

[00:08:59.420] - Bill Sanders

Yes, I was in the army. And so I was in Korea during '53, and then they signed the armistice, and we were still there in '54. I came back and I went back to the University of Oregon, and I still had the 48 Ford, and I drove it back and forth to Oregon from Berkeley, and drove it in the snow, everything. It was a beautiful car. I wish I still had it.

[00:09:34.280] - Big Rich Klein

And your drag racing up there, was it on a track, or was it more street racing?

[00:09:40.700] - Bill Sanders

No, there was a drag strip in Springfield, Oregon. I don't remember who ran it or anything. I remember one service station. I think it was in Eugene or it might have been in Springfield. Service station was advertising on the radio. There was no TV then there, and that was 1951. The service station's advertising said, Anybody that has a three-barrel carburator, a three-carburator intake manifold can get a free oil change and lube. I drove over to the service station and the guy honored the thing and gave me a free oil change and free lube.

[00:10:45.970] - Big Rich Klein

He didn't think anybody would show up for that.

[00:10:51.930] - Bill Sanders

Well, I guess I was the only one. I don't know. I would say probably. Anyway, the drag racing was on a drag strip in Springfield, Oregon.

[00:11:04.800] - Big Rich Klein

Nice. Do you remember how fast you ran?

[00:11:09.680] - Bill Sanders

No. Okay. I didn't have a floor shift. I had three on the tree, and it was really tough to do fast shifts with the shifter on the column.

[00:11:30.000] - Big Rich Klein

I would imagine a lot of our listeners have never driven three on the tree. I had an old Chevy pickup truck that was that way, and it was... Yeah, the shift pattern was really long. Yes, What did you study in college?

[00:11:50.920] - Bill Sanders

Journalism. Okay.

[00:11:52.060] - Big Rich Klein

And what made you go that direction?

[00:11:55.890] - Bill Sanders

I got interested in advertising, and I wanted to be an advertising copywriter. And so I was going to major in business. I should have majored in marketing, but I had to take economics. And at my stage then, now I could pass economics because I enjoy being in the stock market now. I took economics, and there were no calculators in those days. You had to use a slide rule. Mathematics has been my lowest point. I dropped out of business school and got into the journalism school. I minored in geology because I've always been fascinated with geology. Before I went to Oregon, I was going to go to the University of Nevada in to Reno and go to the School of Mines. I wanted to go into mining, but that didn't happen. Excuse me. I ended up at Oregon and majoring in journalism.

[00:13:18.710] - Big Rich Klein

Well, I think it's fortunate for the auto industry that you did end up in journalism instead of mining.

[00:13:27.070] - Bill Sanders

Yeah, I guess so. Although I I think at that time, if I had gone to UN in Reno, if I had graduated, I probably would have gone to Saudi Arabia and oil exploration, and I might have turned out to be a billionaire.

[00:13:50.230] - Big Rich Klein

That's true.

[00:13:51.710] - Bill Sanders

Anyway, I majored in journalism. I have a Bachelor of Science in Journalism from the University of Oregon.

[00:14:00.590] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent. Did you have that convertible all through college?

[00:14:05.570] - Bill Sanders

Yes. It was a beautiful car.

[00:14:09.230] - Big Rich Klein

When you graduated from college, what was your next move?

[00:14:14.960] - Bill Sanders

I worked at an Oregon newspaper as a reporter for about six months, and I moved in Oregon, Roseburg, Oregon. Then I moved back to the Bay Area, and I was lucky he got a job in advertising with Montgomery & Ward, which was still a big department store in those days, and the office was in Oakland, and I was there, trying to think. I think I was there four or five years. While I was working for wards in Oakland, I got fascinated by getting a sports car.

[00:15:09.190] - Speaker 3

I started looking at different sport cars.

[00:15:16.260] - Bill Sanders

Oh, it was 1960. I looked at an Austin Healey. I always wanted a roadster. I wanted a '36 Ford roadster, and I could never afford one and could find one. I always wanted a roadster with no roll-up windows. I looked at the Austin Healey, and I got really turned on by that. I was really interested in that car, and I was also very interested in the Porsche Speedster Super 90. I think now that it's called a 360 or 250.

[00:16:00.260] - Speaker 3

Anyway, I kept going back and forth between the two.

[00:16:06.580] - Bill Sanders

But at that point, Porsche had dropped the roadster and made it a convertible with roll-up windows. But I really loved the Porsche and the way it handled. But I decided to buy the Healy. The Porsche in 1960 was $4,000, and the Healy was 3,600, which was a big difference in those days. I ended up buying the Healy. Today, the condition the Healy is in, it's worth about 80 to 100,000. The Porsche in the same condition today is worth around 300,000. Anyway, I bought the Healy. I loved it, but I traded in my '48 Ford convertible, and I really regreted trading it in. I could have kept it because I used to see it around town, and the convertible top that I had made white was all raggedy and falling down. There were dense in the fenders, and it really made me sick. Anyway, I kept the Healy. I still have the Healy. It has 25,000 original miles, and it's in the garage. I can't drive it when it's 104. Well, I'll tell you why later. I have a tough time now getting in and out of the car. My wife has to pull me out, so I decided I'm going to sell it.

[00:17:59.890] - Bill Sanders

I The guy was interested about a year and a half ago, and he said he'd pay 100,000, so I'll see if I can find him again. There you go.

[00:18:09.900] - Big Rich Klein

Nice. That's a good upgrade from... But you've had that investment for a while, so that's not... But that's pretty good, $3,600 to $100,000.

[00:18:23.100] - Bill Sanders

Yeah. The guy that I used to work with at Motor Trend, an art director, every time I would I've never seen him. I think he may have passed away. He'd always say, Do you still have your Healy? Anyway, I still have it.

[00:18:41.110] - Big Rich Klein

Beautiful.

[00:18:41.420] - Bill Sanders

So from Montgomery Ward, I work in Oakland. Then they moved our office to LA, and I was in LA for about a year, and I thought I might like to become a movie director. So I enrolled in USC, School of Film School. I took a class in Yeah, Phil and one in editing. And I can't remember. The semester ended and I Wards was going to move our office to Chicago, and I was going to move back to the Bay Area. I remember when I was going to SC, signing up for classes, girls said, You still have a lot of credits left on your GI Bill. Do you want to take more classes in the film school? And I said, No, I'm moving to the Bay Area. So I always wonder if I had stayed in LA, if I had gone become a part of Hollywood.

[00:20:07.150] - Speaker 3

But anyway, I moved back to the Bay Area, and I worked for Jacuzzi I was in the crazy Whirlpool Bath in public relations for about a year and a half or two.

[00:20:21.930] - Bill Sanders

In 1964, when I left Wards, I went to Europe for a year traveling on $5 a day. One of my Korean war buddies who lives in Portland, he's still alive, he's 94, he was going to go with me. His father and mother were from Italy. My mother was from England. But then he declined. He was a teacher. I went to Europe by myself and traveled around for about 11 months on $5 a day. It was very interesting. And so I came back, and then I went to work at Jacuzzi for a while. Then I went to got a job at... I left Jacuzzi. I got a job at Airborne Freight, and their office was at the San Francisco Airport, SFO I was Assistant to the Vice President, Corporate Communications. It was a big title and didn't do much. That lasted about a year, I guess. Every week, there was a magazine, I don't know if it's still publishing, called Ad Week. Every day, I'd look in Ad Week to see what jobs were available. And one week, this was in 1967, there was an ad for news editor at Motor Trend magazine. So right away, I called and I set up an appointment.

[00:22:25.310] - Bill Sanders

And the publisher at the time was Walt Warren. Everybody in the industry knew Walt. Walt passed away about five years ago, I think. So I flew to LA from the Bay Area. Peterson Publishing was in the old building on Hollywood Boulev hard then. So I got a hotel and I went to the Peterson office and met Walt and, I forget who his name, the his Walsh assistant. I think Steve Kelly or Eric Dalk was editor at the time. Anyway, I remember going to Lunch with Walt and the guy who was his assistant. We walked down Hollywood Boulevard. There was no walk of Fame, and there weren't many tourists around. And we went to Muso & Frank and had lunch. That was in 1967. No, I'm sorry, 1967. Walt hired me, so I went back to the Bay Area, packed up, drove my Healey. In the meantime, I've got to go back a little bit.

[00:23:57.320] - Speaker 3

In '51, I got drafted.

[00:24:03.020] - Bill Sanders

I went to Korea. And as I said, I was there from '53 to '54. When I was on guard duty one night, it was between a motor pool and a rice patty, a little hill. The motor pool was on one side, the rice paddy was on the other, and I I was carrying my M1 carbine, and it was about midnight or one in the morning. Because it was pitch dark, I stepped on a rock and I twisted my ankle and I fell down and landed on my back. And my rifle went… I had it around my arm, so it didn't go flying. Anyway, my back was killing me for weeks after that, and I went to the field hospital and the doctor X-rayed my back and I had twisted vertebrae. I still have the report, pinched disk and nerve damage and everything. And so he wrote a report, said no more guard duty, no no PT, no exercising and everything. So anyway, I came home. Anyway, I had that, and my back has been deteriorating ever since then. But it's been better at times today, and really, I have to walk with a cane. Anyway, I went to work at Motor Trend in '60s '67, late '67.

[00:26:03.300] - Bill Sanders

And I was at Motor Trend from '68 to '72. And I became a senior editor while I was at Motor Trend. I became the road test editor, and then I was senior editor. So I did all the road tests of all the muscle cars.

[00:26:28.390] - Speaker 3

And when I see Hemi Kuda is going at auction now, and I think, God, I could have got a Hemi Kuda for about $8,000 or less.

[00:26:46.100] - Bill Sanders

But I really leaned in those days toward GM and then Ford. I didn't like the Chrysler cars because I didn't like the starter motors, the noise they made, which was really stupid. Anyway, I really loved GTOs, the '68 GTO, '69, '70, and the '70 Mustang, '71, on Mustang. Anyway, we made the Plymouth Road Runner car of the year, one year. I can't remember offhand all the car years we did. I was at Motor Trend from '68 to '72. I decided I… Dick Day became the publisher of… Walt Warren retired. Ray Brock, people won't recognize these names. Ray Brock became the publisher. He and I were really close good friends. He had been editor of Hot Rod, and then he became publisher of Motor Trend. Then I don't know what Ray went to some other position, and Dick Day became the publisher of Motor Trend. Dick Day and I really liked the guy, except we could never get along at work. It was long lead weeks in Detroit. I used to travel to Detroit about four or five times a year for a week or two at a time. I went to the Longlead. Longlead was for magazines where the cars would be introduced in September, and we'd go back there in June or July to preview the cars and get photos for the magazines that didn't come out until September.

[00:29:04.760] - Bill Sanders

I went to Detroit, came back, and I can't remember the photographer for Motor Trend then. I can't remember his name. There was Jerry Style. Bob DeLevo was the photo department director. I think he became vice president, and he just passed away a couple of years ago, Bob DeLevo. Everybody in the business knew Bob. Anyway, I came back from Detroit, and Dick Day and I were looking at the slides on a slide table, a light table, and he said, Where are the rest of the slides? And I said, I'm not the photographer I'm the editor. This is all whatever's here is what he took. And he said, Well, this won't do. And I said, Okay. So then I decided I was going to resign from Motortrend. And I wrote a resignation letter. And Ellen Merlo was the managing editor at the time. She typed it for me, and I signed it, and I went into Dick Day, and I He said, I'm resigning. Here's my letter. He said, Okay. He took it and put it in the desk drawer, and he said, I want you to go to Detroit next week and look at this new car.

[00:30:44.800] - Bill Sanders

I went to Detroit again. Then I came back and he was looking at more photos, and he said, This won't do. There aren't enough photos. He said, You're fired. He fired me, and I said, Okay, I'm going. So I planned to pack up and move back to the Bay Area and see what I could find in the Bay Area. So I was talking to some guys I think it was Wally Wies. And he said, There's a company at Hollywood & Vine called Nationwide Publishing. They just bought a new magazine called I mean, not a new magazine. They just bought a magazine called Four Wheeler, and they're looking for an editor. And when I was at Motor Trend, we had made a couple of trips to Death Valley and did a bunch of off-roading. We took a Jeep and a Range Rover, and I don't know what else, a Dodge four-wheel drive pickup. So I was familiar with off-roading, so I went over and they said, Okay, you can have the job. So I became editor of Four Wheeler. This was in 1972. Maybe I'm getting ahead. You need to ask me questions.

[00:32:21.340] - Big Rich Klein

Actually, you're doing a great job. I have one question, but we're going to go back a little bit. That was When you did your European trip, 11 months, five dollars a day, did you ever write a book about it or a story?

[00:32:39.760] - Bill Sanders

No, that's interesting. I thought about it, but I never did. I didn't take any notes or anything. I was just enjoying myself. So no, I never did.

[00:32:51.580] - Big Rich Klein

Okay, that's a shame. That would have been awesome.

[00:32:53.760] - Speaker 3

Yeah.

[00:32:54.890] - Bill Sanders

So then, okay- And I actually lived on $5 a day.

[00:32:58.500] - Big Rich Klein

That's crazy.

[00:32:59.950] - Bill Sanders

But no, it was possible in those days. You could get a hotel for $2. That was 1964, you got to remember. And you could eat worst in a roll for a dollar, 50 cents. And I had your rail pass that last a year long, your rail pass, and I could ride the train anywhere where I wanted.

[00:33:31.580] - Big Rich Klein

Nice. So then 1972, you became the editor of Four Wheeler. And who was one of the primary people that you worked with? I know that at some point, didn't you work with Sal Fishens somewhere? Was that in Motor Trend?

[00:33:50.280] - Bill Sanders

No, that was at Motor Trend. Sal was a sales rep at Peterson. He didn't work for any one magazine. Okay. He worked for a bunch of them. We became friends at Peterson when he was a sales rep there. That's where I first knew Sal. That's where I first knew Mickey, too.

[00:34:18.310] - Speaker 3

Okay.

[00:34:19.390] - Bill Sanders

Anyway, in '72, I took over, and this company, Nationwide Publishing, was a father-and-son Sun Deal, which was a scam operation. When they had bought the magazine from, I can't think of his name offhand, Bob, the guy who started Four Wheeler, Bob. Maybe I'll think of it. And the salesman who had worked for Four Wheeler for the the previous eight years or something. I think Four Wheeler started in the '60s. His name was Rio Huer, and he knew all the club members, the Four Wheel Drive Association, everything. He was a good salesman.

[00:35:17.600] - Speaker 3

So he and I went around and sold the magazine.

[00:35:22.500] - Bill Sanders

That's where I met Dick Cepek. Oh, let me back up a little bit. Sure. Why was it Motor Trend? It was, what year was it? God. Was it '68 or '69? You can find Now, the very first Baja 1,000.

[00:35:48.460] - Big Rich Klein

1967.

[00:35:50.550] - Bill Sanders

'67. Okay. Ed Perlman and Dick Cepek had done a run from Ansonaya They wanted to La Paz. They got hit in a Perlman's Toyota Land Cruiser. They got hit by a hurricane. They had to live in a coyote borough for a week. Anyway, the facet. Anyway, they decided to form Nora, Ed Perlman. He worked at Peterson. I can't think of his name now. The other guy who was a partner with Ed Perlman, he had worked at Peterson. I knew him well. Anyway, they formed Nora.

[00:36:48.220] - Speaker 3

They had a luncheon to announce the very first Mexican 1,000 in Baja from from Encinada to La Paz.

[00:37:04.000] - Bill Sanders

And the luncheon was at the Sportsman's Lodge on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City. So Ray Brock was the publisher at the time, and he said to me, Why don't you go over and go to that luncheon and see what it's all about? And Ray had done some off-roading in Baja, too. I went to the lunch in '67, and Ed Perlman ran the show, and there were a bunch of guys, a bunch of guys from Northern California, from Nevada, Arizona, where there who wanted to run in the first race.

[00:37:49.420] - Speaker 3

I always remember some guy, I think he was from Northern California.

[00:37:55.940] - Bill Sanders

In retrospect, now, at the time, I didn't think it was funny. In retrospect, I do. Perlman said, Are there any questions? And this guy said, Yeah. Do the service stations in Baja take credit cards? After I got familiar with Baja, that was such a strange question. Anyway, I went to that. That's where I met Ed Perlman. So Then in '72, I went to Four Wheeler. Rio Huer was the salesman, and we published, I don't know, two or three issues and Nationwide Publishing, the Father and Son, when money came in from advertising or for subscriptions, instead of going in the bank, it went in their pockets. They had started a bike magazine, too, Motorcycle magazine. They got a lot of money after the 1961 earthquake. They had a bunch of photos and got all the photos together and published a book of photos that sold like crazy. And they made a lot of money. And that's when they started their company. Anyway, the company was going broke. We kept missing our paychecks, and it was a whole mess. We were in an office building on Hollywood and Vine. Then one day, the phone rang and a guy said, Oh, and I, in the meantime, Rio Huer and I, and Dixie, I had met Dixie and Dixie and I by then a long time.

[00:39:59.900] - Bill Sanders

Rio and I and Dixie and had a bunch of meetings about buying four-wheeler because we knew it was going under with this company, and we knew it was for sales. Then CPAC said he was going to put up the money, and he said, Man, he backed out. Then I contacted… Oh, God, I should have looked up everybody's name. My My memory has really been good up to recently. The guy who was editor of Road and Track at the time, he was an off-roader. He had done a lot of stuff in Baja. So he had run a couple of one thousands by then.

[00:40:51.470] - Speaker 3

This was '72.

[00:40:56.190] - Bill Sanders

I can't think of his name. Anyway, I call I talked to him. I went down to Newport. We had lunch, and he said, We want to buy it. Road and track wants to buy it. But the owner of Road and track at the time, and I can't think of his name, he and His wife were in Dayton for Speed Week, and they couldn't get a decision. They came so close to buying Four Wheeler. Would have been great. I might have moved to Newport Beach. Anyway, that fell through. I was working at Four Wheeler. The phone rang, a guy said, My name is Jack Pelzer, and I just bought Four Wheeler. Do you want to stay on as editor? I said, Sure. Jack Pelzer had… What's the name of the publishing company? I guess it was Pelzer Publishing. He had a little house, an old house, I should say, in North Hollywood. That's where their offices were, where they published Mini Bike and something else. Mini Bike was his big magazine at the time. I went up, moved into the old house, had a bedroom, was in my office.

[00:42:30.040] - Speaker 3

I started Four Wheeler in North Hollywood in this old house.

[00:42:38.710] - Bill Sanders

That went through '72 into '73. In '73, Walt Warren, who had hired me at Motor Trend, was freelancing. He came up with an idea and he said, I've talked, he had talked to Toyota, and they were interested. He wanted to get a land cruiser and convert it to propane.

[00:43:12.630] - Speaker 3

And so I said, that sounds like a good idea.

[00:43:18.830] - Bill Sanders

So they put that deal together, and Walt had this propane Toyota. I think I did three articles on it in the beginning of '73. Then that finished, and the four-wheeler kept going on. I was road testing Jeeps and everything you can think of four-wheel drive pickups, and we were doing full-bore off-road. Then the guy who was the American vice President, general manager of Toyota at the time, they were still in an old building in Torrance. His name was Norm Lee. He called me. He was the vice president. He called me and he said, Max Jameson, who was a sales manager at Toyota and had been racing Toyotas with a Toyota dealer. I can't think of his name. Norm Lane said, Max and I have been talking about it. We want you to convert the Land Cruiser propane into a Baja race truck and raced it in the November '73 race. I said, Sounds like a good idea to me. I talked to Jack Pelzer and he said, As long as it doesn't cost me any money, go ahead. Anyway, we put the whole deal together. In the meantime, at an off-road race at Stateline near Vegas, there had been an off-road race.

[00:45:17.840] - Bill Sanders

I think that was in the middle of '72. I had met all these people from around Oceanside, around Escondido, and one of the guys was Pete Springer, and he had a Class I buggy that was all-aluminum frame that he and his father had built, and they had been racing in various races. They had raced in the 1068 and '69. So I had met them and I became friends with all these people around down on the Coast, not Escondido, I'm sorry. What the town is where they lived, one of the Coast towns down there. And I went to parties down there over the weekend and stuff and got to be part of their gang. And so I said to him, he was a good builder, good mechanic. And I said, Toyota wants to build this race truck. Do you want to be my partner and co- driver? And he said, Sure. Any chance to go racing without putting a lot of dough in? So we took the cruiser to him and he modified the suspension, built a really strong suspension. We went to guys in El Monte that built roll bars. Now, I can't think of that company.

[00:47:05.120] - Bill Sanders

They built the roll cage. Oh, we kept the propane. So we went to If I had the magazine here, I could read it all. A tank company, I can't remember, a tank company down in Torrance or somewhere to build big tanks to fit in the back of the cruiser. Then we went to Act Miller, and he fabricated the propane fuel system with the tanks and the fuel system to the engine and the carburetors and converted everything to propane because Act was a former road racer and everything, and he was a great mechanic. So he built the fuel system of the propane cruiser. And Pete did a lot of things, and various people put stuff on it. We use CPIC tires. All kinds of people donated things. We usedvalvoline. Anyway, we got this cruiser built. The race was from, I can't remember, it was from Encinada. I think that race started in Encinada. So we got the thing built, and Pete and I were co-drivers. We started the race in Encinada. This was 1973. Bill Strapp had a bunch of Broncos in the race. Besides, he and Parnelly were in big Oli, and he had a Bronco that Strapp had built, but he had built it as a fully modified.

[00:49:15.140] - Bill Sanders

We were in the stock four-wheel drive class. He had this fully modified Bronco, and these two guys from Mexico, and I met all those guys. They were really great guys, the guys from Mexico. They'd bring 50,000 in cash in a paper bag up to California and buy a truck. Anyway, I can't remember which two guys it was. They bought this Bronco and they raced it. Anyway, we went down the peninsula, and I think I started I started driving. Then we got in the middle of the night. We had three pit stops where they had huge propane tanks because everybody else was just using gas and gas cans. So we had three pit stops for propane down into the middle of the night. We got propane in a couple of places. We went through LA Bay, Bahia de Los Angeles, and through El Arco. And then Pete drove, and I drove. And then I was sleeping during the night. Then he drove in the morning. We got through, I can't remember all the Mexican towns now.

[00:50:58.990] - Speaker 3

The one with the lake and all the palm trees.

[00:51:10.680] - Bill Sanders

Anyway, became daylight and We were on the way to the last checkpoint before La Pauze, the Long Street Highway. And Pete was sleeping and I was driving. So I eventually got to La Pauze and went into the impound, and it was like seven o'clock, eight or nine o'clock in the morning, seven or eight. And we pulled in, and there was this Bronco, and it had been put in the stock class. So we looked at it and Pete said, I think this Bronco is modified for the modified class. So we then went to the hotel and got some sleep. Then we had a meeting, and propane was not allowed under the rules at the time. Walt Lott from Las Vegas, who had his own Rating Association, was the chief steward, and he allowed us to use propane. He gave us a pass on it because we Propane, we were so underpowered. We had a... I think Ack Miller had put a blower on it or something, and that was illegal. Anyway, he allowed it because of propane. So then we said to Walt, examine that bronco. That's in our class, and it shouldn't be. So they checked it out and they said, yeah, this is a fully modified.

[00:52:59.360] - Bill Sanders

You know, They had gotten there in the middle of the night, this Bronco, and he said, That's a fully modified, Straub built Class 4 modified class. So he said, Okay, I'm disqualifying them. So you guys won the stock class. They had the big party that night where everybody got drunk, and we got Samsonite Luggage was one of the awards and everything, so we got all that. But that race, the '73 Race, Ed Perlman and Seep Well, CPAC wasn't involved.

[00:53:46.600] - Speaker 3

Ed Perlman and his partner had lost the contract for Nora, and the '73 Race was put on by this conglomeration of Mexican business guys in Baja.

[00:54:09.240] - Bill Sanders

So they put the race on in '73. And so Everything was great. We had a... Pete went home somehow with someone else, and I drove the Land Cruiser home back up the peninsula, and I tagged along with some other guys, a guy who owned a Jeep store. He's a good friend. Now, I can't think of his name. Anyway, I got back and then we said, When do we get our prize money? They said, There is no prize money. We spend it all putting the race on and putting it in our pocket, so there's there was no prize money. So there was no prize money, but we won the race. And I did a big couple of articles. I did about three issues of building the Toyota race truck in four-wheeler. Then I did a big issue of winning the race, and so we won that race. So then I just kept going with four-wheeler and putting Four Wheeler together and doing road tests and everything for 73, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. I mean, the years rolled by Then we came to '79. Another guy, I can see his face, who was the PR director at American Motors.

[00:55:59.370] - Bill Sanders

He was a friend. In '79, he said, We want to race a CJ7 in the 1,000. Oh, I'll back up. We had the Land Cruiser 73 and into '74, and we ran the Land Cruiser in the Baja 500, which we didn't win, and a bunch of races with around Las Vegas with Walt Lott. In his class, we ran a bunch of races where we finished second or third, but we didn't win again with the Land Cruiser. And so we ran the Land Cruiser in about six or... Oh, we ran it in the 400. At 74, I put a deal together with a guy, and we I completely rebuilt it at his business. Everything was brand new. We were ready to go. Pete wasn't in it then, and This other guy was going to be my co-driving. We went to Vegas. We were all there ready to go. I had been going to the Mint 400 races for a long time and got to know K. J. Howe and the general manager. So we were ready for the 74, it was either 74 or 75. Now I can't remember. Min 400. And the guy who we had rebuilt, rebuilt the truck at his shop.

[00:57:56.690] - Bill Sanders

He and his buddy took it out the day before the race, he said, I want to pre-run the course. I had already pre-run the course a couple of weeks earlier. I want to pre-run the course and see how it is. And he had never raced off road. So when he came back, the Land Cruiser was all dirty and it had been rolled or something. And they had hit a rock and they broke a front spindle, and it wasn't drivable then. And I ran all over Vegas looking for a spindle at Toyota dealers. And so anyway, we didn't race it in that meant 400. Anyway, then by 1979, I don't know Do you want to know anything in between?

[00:58:48.230] - Big Rich Klein

I'm enjoying the heck out of all your stories. So whatever you want to share, we want to listen to.

[00:58:55.350] - Bill Sanders

So in '79, this guy who is the PR director at American Motors in Detroit, Southfield, Michigan, he called me and said, We want to race a CJ7. Do you want to build it and race it? I said, Sure. Jack Pelzer and I talked about it, and he said, I don't care as long as it doesn't cost me any money. I went to Strapp and I said, Will you build this CJ7? Heaven for me? He said, Okay. He was getting paid by Ford and doing everything for Ford. And, oh, let me interject something. This is 1979. I just thought of something. Back in '69 or '70, when I was at Motor Trend, Dick Day arranged for us to interview Steve McQueen. So his office was on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City. So Ellen Merlo and I and Eric Dahlquist drove over to Studio City to go to his office to interview Steve McQueen. And we pulled in behind the building, and all these parking spaces were behind the building, and they had names on, reserve for. And I said, I think dog was driving. I said, Park in that space. And we pulled in, and there was a sign that said, Reserve for C.

[01:00:43.710] - Bill Sanders

Heston, Charles Wow. So we said, We better back out of this one.

[01:00:53.890] - Big Rich Klein

You don't want to mess with Moses.

[01:00:56.180] - Bill Sanders

Yeah, right. Yeah. When he had his rifle from these cold dead hands. Anyway, so we parked and we went in. We met Steve McQueen, and we went in his office, and we did this interview for about an hour and a half, and it was really fascinating. We talked about bullet shooting bullet. We talked about the one The movie, I can't remember her name, where he had a buggy, he drove on the beach. He was a bank executive and a multi Millionaire and Thomas Crown Affair. There you go. That was the name.

[01:01:50.410] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[01:01:51.840] - Bill Sanders

Anyway, so we asked him about the Dune Buggy, and we said, Who built a Dune Buggy for you?

[01:01:59.700] - Speaker 3

Was it...

[01:02:02.350] - Bill Sanders

Who's it? Myers? Yeah. Was it Myers? Yeah, it was Myers. I remember he said, No, I don't know who built it, but it was a piece of crap. I had a driver I did that on the sand and it kept falling apart because he raced in Mexico. In the great escape, he rode the motorcycle himself and everything. Anyway, that was a really fascinating day interviewing Steve So I still have a bunch of 8 by 10 black and white photos of him, and I still have the tape recording. It's buried somewhere in my house.

[01:02:42.200] - Big Rich Klein

Wow, that's awesome.

[01:02:44.840] - Bill Sanders

So, okay, 1979, we got the CJ7 Jeep brand new with the V8 and went to Straub. They took it to the Strape shop. They started working They built a full roll cage. They built a beautiful suspension. They did a fantastic job. I have a picture that we had on the cover. I have it in a frame at home that we… Dennis Adler was doing photography for me then, and we were on a flatbed shooting down, and he had all the workers who had worked on it in his shop and Bill Strapp, and we took a photo of the CJ7, finished, ready for the 1,000 or ready to race. They finished that. The first race was the Parker 400 for the CJ7. We went over to Parker, and my wife and I, and We were in the hotel. Rod Hall. We were with Rod Hall, Jamie Martinez, and Gail Pike. Gail Pike was running a Dodge four-wheel drive pickup with Jamie Martínez was his co- driver, and Jamie was working for Straub. Rod Hall was in his Dodge four-wheel drive pickup. That was also built at Straub's, but they were both Dodge. Trying to think of Rodney's co- driver.

[01:04:46.320] - Bill Sanders

Rodney died a couple of years ago. What was his co- driver's name? God, they were all from Hammet, Rod and his co- driver. His co- driver worked at a Buick dealer. Anyway, I went out and did with my wife in the brand new CJ7 She was expecting... My wife and I had spent from '72 to '79 going out in the desert to ghost towns, old mines, every Everything that was far, far away that was really hard to get to in various different four-wheel drive vehicles. So when you're exploring in the desert, you're putting along slow. I went to pre-run a little bit of the course with my wife. I know she wasn't expecting it. We were belted in. She was wearing her sunglasses, so I went up to race speed, and she was freaking out, and her sunglasses flew off. She wasn't expecting that a rough ride. So anyway, she wasn't very happy about that. So my co-driving at the Parker 400 was Jean Calvin, who had Dust Times magazine, which is now in Ormhoff possession. So we started the race. Everything went pretty good, but the suspension just wasn't working right. I don't know what they did on the suspension.

[01:06:42.340] - Bill Sanders

It just didn't work, and especially the rear suspension. Anyway, we got halfway through the race and it broke and we were stuck in the out. But Jean had her thermos full of coffee that she always took. I had Strapp build a little metal bracket cup holder for her thermos, thermos of coffee. Anyway, so we had coffee. Anyway, we broke in that race. Then the thousand was the next race. We Hopefully, we had the suspension repaired by then by the thousand. We decided to have four people drive the Jeep instead of just two. I had a co- driver named Too Tall Terry from here in the valley. I can't remember his last name. Too Tall Terry was my co- driver. And Pete Springer had a guy from his town down on the beach as his co- driver. So we started the race, Terry and I, in '79 in the Jeep, and Pete was going to do the second half.

[01:08:20.640] - Speaker 3

So we went, I can't remember if that started in Encinada.

[01:08:27.690] - Bill Sanders

I think it did. When up over to the mountain, and then down on the other side.

[01:08:38.890] - Big Rich Klein

So you went to El Diablo and all that?

[01:08:43.540] - Bill Sanders

Yeah, yeah And so we were down, I think it was probably north of El Arco somewhere. There was a long stretch of a gravel road, and I was doing about 100 or a little over. And And suddenly I saw the bunch of Mexican people on the side of the road. And then I looked up and there was a big rock in the middle of the road, and I was going so fast. I tried to steer I think, right and hit the brakes as hard as I could, but I clipped the big rock under the chassis, really made a bad noise. We got out and looked at it and didn't seem to have heard anything. Anyway, we kept going. We got to the halfway point. There was a checkpoint, and there was a trailer that was part of... By this time, Sal was running SCOR in '79. I should have said we went through Mickey, started SCOR, and did all the Coliseum racing and everything in the interim. Sal took over score for Mickey, and then Mickey was killed, unfortunately, and sadly.

[01:10:09.870] - Speaker 3

Then, I guess before, I'm trying to put all the timelines.

[01:10:15.660] - Bill Sanders

Before the 1,000, after the Parker Race, we raced another couple of races with the CJ7. Then Mickey was putting on his race at Old Riverside, the Riverside Off-Road Race. That was on a Sunday. Then on a Saturday, they had celebrities racing in the same vehicles, driving the vehicles in a celebrity race.

[01:10:50.460] - Speaker 3

So the racers had to take a celebrity and show them how to drive off road.

[01:11:01.520] - Bill Sanders

And I had... No, I can't remember his name. He had a big TV. He was a big TV star at the time. This was in '79. He co-rode with me around the Riverside course, and I was trying to take it easy. He said, Wow, we're really bouncing. He said, I'm going to have to wear my boxer's mouth guard to protect my teeth while I'm driving because I'm an actor. Anyway, we did that. Then we were in the thousand. We got to the halfway point. Pete was driving a Jeep Cherokee as our chase vehicle. So the Jeep Cherokee was there. Pete got in and took off, and Terry got in the Jeep Cherokee and went to sleep. I went in the trailer when it was really warm inside because this was in November, and Baja was probably down around 50 or something degrees. I was sleeping on the floor of this trailer, and they had the lights on full, and people kept coming in and out, and they kept saying, get out of the way, move out of the way, go sleep somewhere else. I was so tired, I just kept sleeping. Anyway, Pete went on and finished in La Paz As I said, Ron Hall was racing his Dodge pickup four-wheel drive.

[01:12:53.750] - Bill Sanders

When I entered the 79 1,000, I I went out to West Lake where Sal had his office, and I was bound and determined to enter the modified four-wheel drive class because I knew we could beat the guys who were in that class because Ron Hall was in the stock four-wheel drive class. Gail Pike and Jamie Martinez were in the stock four-wheel drive class. Roger Mears was racing a Jeep pickup in the stock four-wheel drive class. I was bound and determined to go into the modified four-wheel drive class. I went out, took the money, entered, and I forget who was there running then with Sal taking the money. I said, put us in the modified four-wheel drive class. And he said, Oh, you don't want to do that. If you win, you want to be in the stock four-wheel drive class because that's the most popular. And I said, no, put us in the modified. He went, No, go in the stock. And I went, Okay, put us in the stock. So when Pete got to La Paz, Rod Hall had gotten there first, Rod and Fricker. That was his- Okay, Fricker.

[01:14:36.830] - Big Rich Klein

Remember? Yeah.

[01:14:38.140] - Bill Sanders

Yeah. Jim Fricker was Rod's co-driving forever. So he and Fricker got their first. Roger Mears in the Jeep got their second, and Gail Pike and Jamie got their third, and we got their fourth in the stock class. The first three guys won trophies, and we won a little plaque thing that I still have. But the guys who were in that won the modified class, we beat their time by three hours.

[01:15:20.080] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, wow.

[01:15:21.080] - Bill Sanders

We were three hours faster than the modified. So anyway, that was the last race. That was the last race of the CJ and my last race in '79. Then I continued on running Four Wheeler, doing road tests and editing and putting out the magazine The magazine kept growing and growing, and Jack Pelzer kept owning it. We had beautiful offices in Chatsworth.

[01:15:56.760] - Big Rich Klein

So you got out of the little tiny house?

[01:15:59.560] - Bill Sanders

Oh, we had moved out of that a long time ago. He bought a huge building. A cigar manufacturer had been in it, so our offices were great. Then he downsized, and we moved to a tiny office on, I think, Sadaquo. No, it wasn't Sadaquo. I forget. On a street in West Hills. I don't know if West Hills, anyway, near Topanga. And so we moved into these really tiny offices. And then Dennis Adler came to work for me. And he went on and wrote a lot of gun books, famous rifles and pistols. Anyway, we were there in those offices. I got married in 1979, and I kept running the magazine, and it kept getting bigger. Then I had started Four Wheelier of the Year, and Toyota was the first Four Wheelier of the Year. I think it was a four wheel drive pickup. And then we did...

[01:17:22.110] - Speaker 3

No, Jeep Cherokee was first Four Wheelier of the Year.

[01:17:27.390] - Bill Sanders

I remember I I was at the American Motors Long Lane in Michigan, at Michigan International Raceway, where the NASCAR track, and they didn't have any off road where to drive it. I think there was a gas crisis at the time or something, and I made the cheap two-door Cherokee, the four-wheeler of the because it was the first year of the two-door from the four-door. I drove it around in the woods behind the racetrack and took pictures. That was the very first four Wheeler of the year. I should have looked through all my magazines before we did this.

[01:18:20.350] - Big Rich Klein

You're doing great.

[01:18:22.990] - Bill Sanders

Anyway, we gave it one year to Toyota, and I forget which others Jeep got it. I don't know. Oh, so let me back up again. That was all the racing. In 1973, I got a Chevy K10, half ton regular cab, short bed pickup as a project truck. And at that time, Vick Hickey was building building a lot of off-road stuff for Blazers and Chevy pickups. He was a GM man, Chevy man. He built the Sidewinder. Chevy Blazer was the name he came up with, Vick Hickey, when he was working for... He was an engineer at GM. Then he went into business. He and Strapp had been in the Navy together in World War II. Then he built this sidewinder or something, and Steve McQueen raced the sidewinder for Vic Hickey in the 500 or the 1,000. Mcqueen and Jim Garner had raced off road then, and I got to know Jim Garner because he was a Korean War veteran, and I was. And we talked about when he was there, and I said he was in the Fifth Regimental combat team. And I said, when I was in Korea, the Fifth Regimental combat team came near where we were camp and set up their tents and set up their camp.

[01:20:19.170] - Bill Sanders

He said, What year was that? I said, '53. He said, Oh, I was home by then because he had gotten two Purple Heart, I think in '50 or '51, Jim Garner. Anyway, both of those guys raced in a bunch of off-road races. In '73, I got this Chevy K10. Vick Hickey built the roll bar in the bed, did a lot of suspension work, the push bar in the front. I forget I used Seepec tires originally and wheels. And there was a guy in San Diego, Taylor enterprises. His main business was converting vans because van conversions were really hot then for hippies. When you'd go to a race and there'd be a sign on the van said, If this van is rocking, don't bother knocking. That guy and his girlfriend would be in there. Anyway, he did van conversions. Taylor, I can't remember his first name. He's out of business. I've been looking, googling him for a long time. He designed the very first great off-road race seat. Everybody had a Taylor seat, and they Everybody loved them.

[01:22:01.320] - Speaker 3

They're all steel, but sink way down here.

[01:22:07.520] - Bill Sanders

It's not a regular bucket seat. You actually sink into it. So he wanted to put his seats in. So I went down to San Diego with my Chevy. He did his seats. I left it there. He did a whole interior because his whole main thing was upholstery. So he did all brand new carpeting, the postre, brand new headliner, the seats. It turned out beautiful. The truck is red and white, and everything inside is red and white. So he did that. We did a bunch of other projects. Anyway, I finished the project. I bought the truck in '73. I think I paid. Wayne Tomes was the PR guy out here. He got it for me. It was It was built in the GM factory in Union City, I think. It was built in the old GM factory that is now the Tesla factory, where Teslas are now built. That's where my truck was built. Anyway, I bought the truck. I still have it. It has 20,000 miles on it, and it's in my garage.

[01:23:25.560] - Big Rich Klein

Nice.

[01:23:26.280] - Bill Sanders

It's all original. In Three years ago, I had my mechanic. We built the engine because I always wanted a big, really good small block three '50s. So we built the engine. I got a comp cam, roller rockers, MSD Ignition, Edelbrock intake, Doug's headers. I've got a super horsepower engine in my '73 Chevy pickup. My gardener keeps wanting to buy it. The guy that trims my trees, he keeps saying, When are you going to sell me that truck? Anyway, I got that and we went all along doing Four Wheeler. We got married in '79, '80. I can't remember what year it was.

[01:24:37.600] - Speaker 3

Anyway, Jack Pelzer gave Four Wheeler to his son, John Pelzer.

[01:24:45.370] - Bill Sanders

This was in the '80s, late '80s. I took John to Detroit and introduced him to all the executives and the ad agencies and everything. And we made several trips together back there so he could get to know everybody in Detroit.

[01:25:07.240] - Speaker 3

And then went along He decided that he couldn't afford to run it or something.

[01:25:21.210] - Bill Sanders

So I don't know whether they contacted him or he contacted them. Ten House magazine the guy that owned it, decided to buy Four Wheeler. So Penhouse bought Four Wheeler. The whole Four Wheeler staff had to fly to New York, where Penhouse was headquartered there. And they had a big office building in Manhattan, penthouse. And so we looted New York. And at that time, the penthouse guys were checked around the industry and talked to different people who knew me and what I had done with Four Wheeler, and they said, We want you to I'm going to sign a no competition contract if you leave Four Wheeler. And I said, Okay. So we went. We had about three days of meetings at the penthouse offices with all these people that are going to be running, doing Four Wheeler stuff. And so I signed the contract, but I never went anywhere. So I stayed at Four Wheeler. We For another two years, I think after penthouse bought it, we were still on Sata Koy. They brought in... Penthouse hired a guy, I can't remember his name as the Ad Director, and had a huge salary, and he wasn't an off-roader, so his sales weren't very good for me.

[01:27:09.590] - Bill Sanders

I should have taken over that job. So anyway, then he made Another guy gave something. He made him, John made him the publisher, and I became executive editor or something. So that went on for a a year or two, and they really took away all my duties. I didn't have that much left to do. I was still going to Detroit because I was the only person that knew anybody in Detroit or anybody in the industry. And then finally, one day, this guy, Dave, said, come in in my office. I went in, and he said, we're going to have to let you go. And I said, yeah, I figured that. So then I ended my relationship with poor Wheeler. So then I started freelancing, and I There was an industry magazine in Detroit, Hot Rod Industry News. I started doing an off-road column for them and I did that for about a year. Don Prieto got me this freelance job at Hot Rod Industry News. No, that's not the name of it. That was a Peterson magazine. At this magazine in Detroit, and I did columns for them for about a year and a half or two.

[01:28:48.970] - Bill Sanders

What was it like CIMA industry or something? Something to do with CIMA. Anyway, then they discontinued my column. And then George Elliott had been the editor in chief at Argus Publishing. Do you remember Argus Publishing? Yes. And George Elliott had been there like 20 years. And they had Off-Road magazine. So his son, Duane, became the editor of off-road. This was in, I know, '88 or '80 something. Mid to late '80. So I started doing a column for Off Road. So I was doing a really nice column every month for off-road magazine. When Duane was the editor, And the guy who owned Off Road, the guy, MacMillon, had a bunch of car magazines down in Torrance. And so they sold Argus to Macmillan. And everybody who had been at Argus for 20 years, they called them in and said, we've sold the magazines, you're all unemployed now. I was a freelancer. I was in the meeting, and one guy's wife had just given birth the night before. And so they thought they had pretty secure jobs. And the car magazine business is the most insecure job in the world.

[01:30:38.270] - Big Rich Klein

Yes. A lot of people just found that out over the last couple of years.

[01:30:42.340] - Bill Sanders

Yes, right. So anyway, Argus got sold, and all these people were laid off with no prospects, and they had just bought homes and everything. So my column ended there. Then Dwyane left and moved to Oregon, and he started an off-road, an online truck magazine. I think it was Trucks Online or something like that. So I was writing a column for him online, and then he ended up with some financial trouble. And by then, I think I was 87 or 88, I said, I've had enough, and I threw my hat in, and that was it. Then in I got inducted into Armhof.

[01:31:34.860] - Big Rich Klein

Yes, the Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame, correct?

[01:31:38.690] - Bill Sanders

Yes, the Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame. And the night I was inducted, well, let me back up on that. You had to fill out all kinds of forms then. I don't know what Barbara does now, but you had to fill out all kinds of forms and do to get all interviews and all kinds of stuff. Dick Landfield was on the committee then, and I said, If I apply, will you pass me and let me get inducted? And he said, I don't know. I'll have to decide that. Anyway, Tom Madigan was alive then. Tom Madigan was the original editor of Off-Road magazine. He had been a drag racer, and we were very close friends all the time. I was at Four Wheeler, and he was off road. We would go to the long lead previews together and eat together, drink together. Our wives became close friends, and we were all really close friends. And then Tom got prostate cancer, which I have now, too. I'm on Lupron. Anyway, Tom was suffering with prostate cancer, and I said, I got to fill out all these forms. And he said, I'm just piddling along writing my books. He wrote a book on Jim Garner.

[01:33:16.080] - Bill Sanders

He wrote a book on Edelbrock. He wrote about seven or eight really great books that I have, all of them. He said, Let me take on the paperwork, fill out all the stuff, interview people and do it. You won't have to do anything. He did all the paperwork, so I got passed, and I got accepted, so I was inducted in 2014. Tom Rodes, who was at Ford Public Relations for years and is a very close friend, they live in Arizona. Of course, I invited him, and Tom couldn't go because he was too sick. My wife and I and Pete Springer showed up. His wife didn't come to the table. He was there by himself. Tom Rose said, I'm going to call Parnelly and tell him he's got to come to your induction and sit at our table. I said, I was going to ask Parnelly, but I didn't want to bother him. And he said, No, I'm calling him because Parnelly was Ford, and Tom knew him really well, Tom Rodes. Anyway, at my induction, Parnelly came and sat at my table. And some of the other inductees, they had like 8, 10, 15 people at their tables.

[01:34:54.690] - Bill Sanders

We had six or seven. And people Coming by my table all night shaking hands with Parnelly. Parnelly sat at our table and there were… Dick Lanfield had a huge table. One of his drivers was inducted at that time. I can't remember his name. Anyway, I was inducted in 2014. I remember going to the very first Off-Road Hall of Fame induction. It was Ed Perlman ran it. It was at the Queen Mary. Do you remember that?

[01:35:41.410] - Big Rich Klein

No, I wasn't.

[01:35:42.850] - Bill Sanders

It was in '78, I believe. Maybe then, yeah. It was at the Queen Mary in the big ball room. Jim Garner got inducted at that one. Dick Seapeck was inducted then, Bill Straff was inducted then, and Vick Hickey was inducted at that very first one. I was sitting at a table across from Garner. We were talking. I was talking to Strapp. It was really a terrific night. All the old timers who are now dead were all inducted then. Garner's gone, Strapp's gone, Hickey's gone, Perholman's gone. So it was at the Queen Mary. I always remember that, the very first one.

[01:36:41.580] - Big Rich Klein

That's a great story.

[01:36:43.820] - Bill Sanders

So anyway, then I finished my freelance and said, I'm throwing in the towel, and I haven't written anything since.

[01:36:57.860] - Big Rich Klein

If you want to, you should revisit that European trip on five dollars a day.

[01:37:03.110] - Bill Sanders

Every once in a while, I think of writing something, but then I never get around to it. I don't like the type on a computer. I have to get my typewriter out and type on the typewriter, and I have to go get... There's a company, a store in San Fernando. They still sell all the ribbons for all the old-time typewriters providers. So I've been thinking of getting some ribbons and getting out my... I've got an IBM electric and I've got a portable, so I can use either one.

[01:37:43.000] - Big Rich Klein

Well, I'll tell you what, if you ever want to write another story, and you want to get it published, I'll put it into my magazine. It's an off-road magazine called Forlo. Okay.

[01:37:56.720] - Bill Sanders

That's not a bad idea. Let me think about that. Okay. So anyway, I have my '73 Chevy K10 that I bought and I still own, and it's got a built-up small block 350. In '91, when I was freelancing, Harold Allen was working at Ford Public Relations then with John, and John... God, I can't think of his last name. Harold got me a '91 F150 short bed. I did a bunch of projects on that, put a camper shell on. Before that, in '84, when I was still riding for off-road, the first Bronco 2 came out. No, I was still riding for four-wheeler. I'm sorry. I was at a function, and I ordered a Chevy small four-wheel drive. I can't remember the- The Love?

[01:39:09.880] - Big Rich Klein

Was it the Love? Chevy Love?

[01:39:13.450] - Bill Sanders

No, no. In the Somewhere in '79, I have to go, '79, one of my project trucks was a Chevy Love. I got a Chevy Love, put everything on it.

[01:39:29.490] - Speaker 3

You could think and all the products, the suspension, double-shocks, everything as a project truck.

[01:39:41.950] - Bill Sanders

The '79 Chevy Love, my wife drove that all over Death Valley. We went in... What's a Canyon? There's a famous Canyon that you have to drive over four foot boulders to get in there. And we drove this poor little Chevy love through all over those boulders, got in the canyons about 10 yards wide, and the walls go straight up. It's the most incredible canyon you've ever seen. Thousand-foot walls go straight up. We've driven that Chevy Love to every part of Death Valley. We did drive it. The valley just before Death Valley, you can't think of the name of it, we drove to all kinds of old mines over the roughest roads. We put that Chevy Love over the roughest roads and it just worked beautiful. I had my 50th anniversary class reunion at University of Oregon at some point, and they did a book, and you had to put a photo of yourself in the book, and everybody put head shots from their yearbook. Terry took a shot of me behind the Chevy Love on this really rough road at this old mine in the near Death Valley. I put that in the yearbook for the University of Oregon Alumni 50th Reunion.

[01:41:43.710] - Speaker 3

Nice.

[01:41:46.410] - Bill Sanders

God, everything keeps popping in my mind. I had the Chevy Love, and I eventually I had to sell that eventually because it wouldn't pass smog anymore. I loved the truck If I could have put a small block Chevy in it, but in California, you can't change engines. Anyway, in '84, I was at Four Wheeler. I got the first Bronco, too. Oh, we were at this auto function somewhere in the South Bay, and Harold Allen was there, and the guy who was doing West Coast PR for Chevrolet, and I said, I ordered that Chevy new little SUV some time ago. When am I going to get it? And he said, Oh, they're having third camp, do automatic with air conditioning and and there were all kinds of problems. And Harold said, I have a brand new Bronco 2 you can have as a project truck. And I said, great. So I got the Bronco 2. I just loved the Bronco Eventually, everybody said they roll over. But people put stock tires on. If you put wide tires on, there's no chance of rolling it over. Anyway, I did a bunch of projects on the Bronco 2 Those were in four-wheeler.

[01:43:21.220] - Speaker 3

I bought the Bronco, too.

[01:43:23.680] - Bill Sanders

I still own that. It has 70,000 miles on it. I think that's the end of my project, Trucks that I still own.

[01:43:34.960] - Big Rich Klein

So I have a question.

[01:43:37.320] - Bill Sanders

Okay.

[01:43:39.830] - Big Rich Klein

If you still own those and you still have them available, would you mind maybe me coming down and photographing them and doing a story on them for our magazine?

[01:43:52.650] - Bill Sanders

I'd love it.

[01:43:53.840] - Big Rich Klein

Okay, we'll make that happen.

[01:43:57.440] - Bill Sanders

Would you want to take the photos in the street in front of my house, or do you want to go somewhere?

[01:44:03.470] - Big Rich Klein

Well, that would be entirely up to you.

[01:44:06.260] - Bill Sanders

Okay. Well, we can't do it until the fall because it's a hundred and four today. One year, 10 years ago, eight years ago, we were at a fabulous Ford's Forever at Nosbury Farm. Have you ever been to one of those?

[01:44:26.610] - Big Rich Klein

No, I haven't.

[01:44:27.830] - Bill Sanders

Okay. Ford puts it on every year. They get 2000 Ford's Classics, Broncos from the '30s and the '20s. I think they get 800 or a thousand Mustangs. Anyway, they call it Fabulous Fords Forever. For the press, they have a luncheon, and we always got invited, and we always went. And I used to talk to Linda Vawn. We'd have long conversations. You know Linda Vawn, right? Yes. Cal Shelby and I would sit at the table and talk for hours or for a long time, for half an hour. Anyway, I think it was my sixth or seventh fabulous Fords. It was at Knott's Berry Farm. It was 104 that day. My wife remembers clearly. I walked all over on the Blacktop parking lot all around Knott's Berry Farm, looked at it all. I was looking at all the 30 Fords because I wanted to see how many 36s were there. And I didn't drink any water. We drank everywhere. For some reason, I didn't drink any water. We came home that night, had dinner at a restaurant near our house. I started feeling flushed. And the next morning, I had a fever. I couldn't get... I was burning up.

[01:46:12.940] - Bill Sanders

I couldn't get cold. She took me to the emergency room. Unfortunately, the doctors couldn't recognize heat stroke, and I was on a journey, and I I had to go to the bathroom. I got off the journey. I went two steps, and I fell down on the floor and passed out. Then I woke up. They put me on the journey. One doctor said, oh, he had a heart attack. One doctor said he has something wrong with his lungs. They couldn't tell that I had heat stroke. Anyway, I ended up in the hospital with heat stroke for three weeks with a A breathing tube down my throat. All I would see guys face every once in a while would say, How are you doing? I couldn't talk. I was on my back. Finally, after three weeks, they wheeled me into a room, my wife and my mother-in-law were there, and I said, I'm going to die, right? They said, No, you're okay. I had heat stroke, so then I go through heat, then through rehab. It's going to be over 100 till Wednesday or Thursday this week. I'm stuck in the house in the air conditioning. Last night, I went out at 10:00 to put my new cover on my bronco.

[01:47:50.750] - Bill Sanders

I just had a guy wash it, put the cover on. It took us about 20 minutes. I came in, I was sweating, so I can't go out of the air conditioning.

[01:48:03.460] - Big Rich Klein

No, we'll wait until November if we need to.

[01:48:07.510] - Bill Sanders

Yeah, I have a tooth that has to be extracted, and I told the oral surgeon, Wait till November. I own a '75 Impala that I had reupholstered. I had a paint job. The guy really screwed me, and it enveloped some cancer, needs repainting. It's at my mechanics now, and we're talking about rebuilding the engine. If he gets that done by fall, I can get a new paint job on it and start driving that. It's a really beautiful car. So anyway, I'm rambling on. Yes, I'd like you to come and take pictures of everything.

[01:48:58.950] - Big Rich Klein

That would be awesome. That would be awesome. I'd love to. Well, Bill, you've lived an awesome life. I would imagine you don't have a whole lot of regrets. Maybe you could have ended up in Dubai or Saudi Arabia with oil and been a multimillionaire, but you would have missed everything that you'd done.

[01:49:27.130] - Bill Sanders

Oh, no. Every once in a while, I have not regrets about that, but every once in a while, I have regrets about whether I had... If road and track had bought four-wheeler, how different it would have turned out, and things like that. But I don't have any regrets.

[01:49:49.010] - Big Rich Klein

Well, that's good, because after 93 years, you really don't want to have any regrets.

[01:49:54.660] - Bill Sanders

Oh, no. My wife keeps saying, You've had a most incredibly fascinating life, and she's been along for a big part of it. When we got married, I was 46, and she was 24.

[01:50:10.260] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, you robbed the cradle.

[01:50:12.480] - Bill Sanders

Yeah. So we did a lot We, the 91 pickup, we've driven it in almost every state in the Union, and it still only has 85 78,000 or something like that, 75,000. Wow.

[01:50:36.610] - Big Rich Klein

I have a 2012 Ford raptor that I bought four and a half years ago, and I've already put over 200,000 miles on it myself.

[01:50:48.600] - Bill Sanders

I haven't hit 100,000. Oh, my Impala has 100,000 on it.

[01:50:56.730] - Big Rich Klein

Okay, there you go.

[01:50:58.560] - Bill Sanders

But none of the project trucks came close to that. But I would like you to do that. That's a great idea.

[01:51:06.990] - Big Rich Klein

Well, we'll keep in touch. Okay. I want to say thank you so much for spending the time, and I'm glad we got a chance to do this. I will see you in the future because I want to shoot your trucks. I want to shoot your vehicles. Absolutely.

[01:51:21.420] - Bill Sanders

Okay, great. Tell Barbara that I finally did my interview.

[01:51:25.880] - Big Rich Klein

Yes, I will let her know. She'll be happy.

[01:51:29.760] - Bill Sanders

Okay. Yeah. Okay. All right. Great talking to you.

[01:51:33.660] - Big Rich Klein

Great talking to you, too.

[01:51:35.520] - Bill Sanders

If I think of anything important, I'll give you a call.

[01:51:39.100] - Big Rich Klein

Sounds great. Okay. I appreciate it, Bill. Thank you so much.

[01:51:43.750] - Bill Sanders

Okay. Bye. Okay.

[01:51:45.060] - Big Rich Klein

Bye-bye. Well, that's another episode of Conversations with Big Rich. I'd like to thank you all for listening. If you could do us a favor and leave us a review on any podcast service that you happen to be listening on, or send us an email or a text message or a Facebook message, and let me know any ideas that you have, or if there's anybody that you have that you think would be a great guest, please forward the contact information to me so that we can try to get them on. And always remember, live life to the fullest. Enjoying life is a must. Follow your dreams and live life with all the gusto you can. Thank you.