Madman Muntz

Madman Muntz

The basics from Answers.com:

Earl "Madman" Muntz (1914 – 1987), born in Elgin, Illinois, was a merchandiser of used cars and consumer electronics in the 1940s and 50s, mostly in California. He developed the Muntz Stereo-Pak, better known as the 4-track cartridge (predecessor to the 8-Track cartridge developed by Lear Industries). He later founded the Muntz Car Company, which made the Muntz Jet, a sports car with jet-like contours. ... Although Muntz pretended to be a madman, he was actually a shrewd businessman and built up a large fortune selling everything from autos to radios.

The early years:

Born in 1914, Earl Muntz was a born tinkerer. He built his first radio at the age of eight. By the age of 14, in 1928, he had built his own car radio, one of the first ever. And by age 20 he had his own used car lot, with his mother signing all the sales paperwork as Earl wasn't yet of legal age to sign the deals himself. ...

During World War II, with no new cars being manufactured, used cars were at a premium, especially on the west coast. So Muntz bought cars in the midwest at low prices and hired servicemen to drive them west where they sold for double what Muntz paid for them. The servicemen not only got a comfotable ride cross-country, but Muntz paid them $50 each. Everybody made out and thousands were delivered. And only once did a car disappear in transit. But it was recovered a year later and was sold for twice as much as it would have brought if delivered on time!

Earl The Huckster:

Earl "Madman" Muntz was one of the most interesting practitioners of the art of hucksterism that America has ever known. He was a self-taught engineer, an outrageous personality, and the inventor of the Muntz Stereo-Pak 4-track system, the direct ancestor of our beloved 8-track. ...

Earl Muntz started out as a used-car salesman. Before long, he began appearing on radio and television to promote his cars, and that's when his real notoriety began. Muntz is usually credited with starting the "this guy's insane, come take advantage of his crazy prices" school of salesmanship. In some of his commercials, he would promise to take a sledgehammer and smash a car on television if the car wasn't sold that day. He screamed and hollered and loudly proclaimed

"I buy them retail and sell 'em wholesale - it's more fun that way!".

Earl Muntz would do anything for publicity. During the height of the McCarthy era, he contemplated joining the Communist Party in order to get more exposure.

And Earl The TV Engineer:

And how did Muntz get his circuits designed to be so inexpensive? He had several smart design engineers. The story around the industry was that he would wander around to an engineer's workbench and ask, "How's your new circuit coming?"

After a short discussion, Earl would say, "But, you seem to be over-engineering this - I don't think you need this capacitor." He would reach out with his handy nippers (insulated) that he always carried in his shirt-pocket, and snip out the capacitor in question.

Well, doggone, the picture was still there! Then he would study the schematic some more, and SNIP... SNIP... SNIP. Muntz had made a good guess of how to simplify and cheapen the circuit. Then, usually, he would make one SNIP too many, and the picture or the sound would stop working. He would concede to the designer, "Well, I guess you have to put that last part back in," and he would walk away. THAT was "Muntzing" - the ability to delete all parts not strictly essential for basic operation. And Muntz took advantage of this story, to whatever extent it may have been true, and he publicized his "uncanny" ability to cut his costs - in yet more televised advertisements.

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