BusinessTN

The sedans produced at Volkswagen's Chattanooga manufacturing plant won't be the first cars made in the Scenic City--those were built a century ago by Swedish immigrant Henry Nyberg. And now the new VWs won't be the second ones, either. By the time the German automaker fires up its assembly line in 2011, Chattanooga-based Coker Tire Co. will have rolled out its own fleet of 40 new cars.

Well, maybe not "new." Coker's cars will look more like Nybergs than Passats.

In fact, there's a rare 1910 Nyberg on display at Coker Tire; Corky Coker, who runs the business, is an expert on antique racecars. It was his expertise that caught the attention of Indiana filmmaker Justin Escue, who needs 40 replica racecars for his independent film chronicling the first Indianapolis 500. It's planned for release in May 2011, the race's hundredth anniversary.

That first Indy saw chaos and controversy. One car slammed into the judges' stand, causing a pileup, and second-place finisher Ralph Mulford swore he was cheated when the winner ditched his riding mechanic for a rear-view mirror. In this story, the cars are the stars, and in Escue's movie, the stars will have to look and run just right.

Filmmakers have tapped Corky Coker before; he's an icon in an industry he helped create. Vintage tires were a sideline for Harold Coker when he launched the family's automotive service center in 1958, but since son Corky took over the vintage division in 1974, it has gone from 5% to 95% of Coker Tire's business.

Corky Coker says serendipity steered the company toward a niche that would grow Coker Tire's total sales by as much as 20% a year, even as auto dealerships and big-box retailers eroded its original business model. "Sometimes I'd rather be lucky than good," he remarks. Now the world's largest supplier of vintage tires, Coker Tire distributes in 40 countries and has made period tires and wheels for a number of films, including, most recently, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Making cars for film is taking it to a new level for Corky Coker. But he has built hot rods from scratch; his machine shop can turn out steel car bodies as easily as steel rims. And Coker can find what he can't build. He's traveled from South America to Australia hunting antique tire molds, and he's chaired the world's largest automotive aftermarket trade organization.

When Escue called, though, Coker didn't toot his own horn; he just invited the film's producers to Chattanooga. "I didn't really talk to them until they came down and toured our facility, and I showed the guys what we could do. And I invited them to sit down in the passenger seat of my 1909 Lozier--almost exactly the same car Mulford drove."

Sometimes you can be lucky and good.