The Busted Knuckle Garage

“Auto Talk” Host Mark Evans’ Gearhead Haven

Words: Roger Meiners

What do you get when you cross a passion for Mopar® with a gift of gab? You get Mark Evans.

Mopar® enthusiast Mark Evans is host of the “Auto Talk,” segments of Motor Trend Radio heard on SIRIUS and XM satellite radios; and AutoWorld Radio on 140 radio stations nationwide. Evans got his first Mopar machine at age eleven when his father brought home a rusty 1953 Dodge pickup that had a seized engine. But Evans was already hooked on cars. He grew up around Mopar. His grandfather had a large repair garage in Peoria, Ill., and his father had a Plymouth Fury III and a ’67 Dodge pickup. His mother had a Chrysler Newport. He was a hands-on gearhead, even learning to weld in junior high.

Evans still has the green ’65 Dodge Coronet 2-door he bought when he was 13 years old. Since he was too young to drive, his dad had to drive the 440-powered car home for him. When Evans turned 16, he took his pride and joy to high school in Boise, Idaho and then on to Boise State University, where he received a bachelor’s degree, as well as a certificate in heavy-duty auto mechanics.

Evans is a talker, and not only on the radio. He first used his gift of gab to get into business during his senior year in high school. He and his buddy Scott called Jim Tice, owner and founder of the American Hot Rod Association (AHRA), and got the exclusive rights to sell souvenirs at the twelve AHRA national drag races.

“We had eight to twelve tents with merchandise at each race,” said Evans. “We hired mom and pop teams to run the tents, selling T-shirts, decals and belt buckles, with AHRA logos on everything. We got Shirley Muldowney and Big Daddy to give us the rights to do shirts with their images.

“At the 1981 AHRA Nationals in Tulsa we were mobbed all weekend for T-shirts at $7.95 each,” he said.

Not bad for a high school senior.

After Tice died, the AHRA went downhill and so did the souvenir business, so in the mid-1980s he started an auto business on wheels called Mr. Mobile Lube, with a fleet of vans that roamed Idaho to service customers who were too busy to take their cars to auto shops. He also invented and patented a new type of transmission cooler which he sold under the “Trans Guard” name.

Evans is certified in 38 different ASE skills from his days as an auto repair business owner. His hands-on attitude and verbal skills led a customer to recommend him to Boise radio station KIDO (AM 630) for a call-in question-and-answer show. The program eventually morphed into an interview format called “Auto Talk” which was No. 1 in his market fron 1992-1996. He got his big break when he interviewed Barry Meguiar, the auto polish mogul. Meguiar liked his technique so well that he invited Evans to California to do interviews and commentary at the Pebble Beach Concours in 1996.

“Here I was at Pebble,” he said, “I had so much adrenaline I didn’t sleep for three days. I was in a suite on the 18th green looking out, on a telephone doing my radio show, talking to all the celebrities. It was the first live talk radio show at the Concours.”

The Pebble gig led to a contract with Meguiar for the 1997 Frankfurt, Germany, Auto Show. He was set up in a sky box above the Chrysler stand, talking and doing interviews. “I did 80 interviews in three days,” said Evans.

Today, Evans’ garages surround his house in Boise. On one side is the space where he parks his daily drivers. On the other side, connected to the house, is the 55' x 25' 1,450-square-foot garage with a tall ceiling. That’s where the museum is.

“I thought it was time for me to build a big enough place to share the cars, the memorabilia and the stories with everybody,” he said. His cars include the ’65 Dodge Coronet and a ’38 Plymouth painted Pennzoil Yellow (Pennzoil is a sponsor).

“I saw the yellow coupe advertised in a Boise newspaper. It was owned by a hog farmer in Middleton. The car was out in a muddy field with the doors open. Hogs lived in it. I looked at the car through a pair of binoculars and bought it for $100. I put on hip waders and went out and shooed the hogs out of it. It was sunk in the mud below the undercarriage. There were no seats, no trans, no floorboards. I towed it out on a trailer. I painted it yellow. I found some ’38 seats and changed the wiring to 12 volt. We use it for promoting AutoTalk and Pennzoil at car shows.

The garage features a bunch of lighted and powered signs and some pieces given to him by the rock band Paul Revere and the Raiders. These include the front ends from a Nash Metropolitan and an Edsel. They were used as props during Raiders performances.

From car nut, to high school entrepreneur, to radio talk show host, one thing has remained constant in Mark Evans’ life: A passion for all things Mopar.