Toronto-area resident John Waldie, retired but not retiring, is a devoted ambassador for the Pro Modified class and longtime supporter of drag racers and stock car teams north of the border and 2016 inductee and still-active policy-shaper of the Canadian Drag Racing Hall of Fame.

His phone rang Feb. 15, and on the line was his close friend Jim Luikens, another who cast a wide net of friendships in the automobile and racing industry. They had known each other for years and collaborated most recently for Luikens’ Pro Modified reports for National Dragster magazine and DragRaceCentral.com.

Luikens had a request: Can you drive down ASAP and see me? Without hesitation, Waldie got in his car and drove five hours to Grand Rapids, Mich.

There he sat with Luikens, laughing, reminiscing, exchanging endearments of brotherly love. It was the lyrics of Roger Miller’s song “Old Friends” coming to life in a poignant scene. Why was Luikens’ invitation so urgent? Luikens passed away three days later, Feb. 18: “Lord, when all my work is done, bless my life and grant me one old friend, at least one old friend.”

Having at least one old friend is something Jim Luikens, 74, really never had to worry about. He had plenty. And they’re all invited to Hickory Corners, Mich., to the Gilmore Car Museum, Saturday, April 23 to celebrate his remarkable life.

The word “remarkable” is no exaggeration. From the time he uttered his first word – reportedly “cars” – Luikens was hooked on automobiles for both their beauty and power. Ultimately his resumé would show he was a race-car driver, builder, manufacturer's representative, race director, team manager, driver agent, sponsor liaison, racing researcher, writer, TV and Internet broadcaster, and entrepreneur. In 1981, Jim decided to start his own business. He established Rise Sales as a marketing, publishing, public relations, and sponsorship recruitment firm. Throughout the past 41 years, Luikens and his company, Rise Sales, thanks also to lone employee Cyndi Vander Horn, have won a significant number of awards for all of their writing, publishing, and graphic skills.

When, at age 10, he first beheld magazine pictures of the 300SL Gullwing (so named because its doors are hinged at the roof and open upward), he fell in love with Mercedes-Benz vehicles and nurtured that appreciation his entire life. He was so entrenched in knowledge of the brand that the New York Times quoted Luikens in its Sept. 19, 2004, issue about the history of the Mercedes-Benz SLS convertible.

Luikens told reporter Steve Kaminski in an Mlive.com article, “The Gullwing doors blew me away from the first time I saw it. I was 10 years old, and I didn’t know anything about anything. But I knew I was going to have one of those Gullwings. I didn’t know what they cost or anything, and luckily, I ended up having one (in 1988). I was just this little kid, but I knew I wanted the best of the best.”

He was one of seven national officers with the Mercedes-Benz Club of America, and he estimated he has owned nearly 50 Mercedes-Benz automobiles throughout the past 30 years. He recently was recently honored locally for his 40-year membership anniversary in the club. He was selected as National Star Magazine Editor in 2006. In 2017, he received the Silver Star Award from Daimler AG of Stuttgart, Germany. The annual award cites exceptional achievements of an individual Mercedes-Benz Club member worldwide in the interests of the brand and in the preservation and cultivation of the Mercedes-Benz history and heritage.

Kaminski quoted Luikens as saying, “I love being part of the Mercedes-Benz world, the factory, and its history. I have had an unending desire for quality and performance and excellence from my youngest age. In this unending quest for quality, it doesn’t have to be new, but it does have to be perfect. Of the nearly 50 Mercedes that I’ve owned, I only bought three that were new. Normally, I drive used. I’m not an elitist, and I’m not stuck-up. It doesn’t have to be new. I just want the best.” He said in the article that his favorite was his 1993 convertible SL50 AMG.

That quest for perfection at whatever he did became his trademark, and it landed him a job at Berger Chevrolet at Grand Rapids. The folks at the dealership saw how well he did at the dragstrip with his 1957 Pontiac Junior Stocker – the first dragtsip-only car he built in 1967 – and offered him the position of leading the store’s fast-growing High-Performance Parts Department. He and his staff built Berger Chevrolet into the top Chevrolet High-Performance Parts retailer in the nation. Eventually, racing parts manufacturers sought him to represent them, and again he found an area in which he excelled.

One of his buddies traced the start of their friendship to those days. Roger Rosebush, of Bay City, Mich., was for a parts warehouse company in 1971, when Luikens paid him a sales call.

“I was a purchasing agent, and he was a sales rep,” Rosebush told Kaminski. “I was a sought-after guy, so you had to bring something to the table if I was going to put my time into it. He would sit in the reception area, and I would give my secretary questions to ask him, just to see what he knew. I tried to make it as complicated as I could. I would have her ask him, ‘What is the GM part number of a 1969 L88 second-designed aluminum cylinder head. Off the top of his head, he would say ‘3946072.’ It was amazing. He has a photographic memory, or as close as to it as I know. He is a walking computer.”

And so it went with Jim Luikens. He not only wanted to have the best – he wanted to be the best. His commitment to whatever his task was and his attention to detail shined through. Whether it was knowing his parts, prepping a race car, or writing a story, he worked hard. He played hard, too. He traveled to Germany seven times – and in a 2003 visit drove the famed Nurburgring, sating afterward that “it was the coolest thing that I have ever done in my life.”

He drove the length of fabled Route 66 – twice, from Chicago to Santa Monica, Calif. And, according to friend Art Vaandering, of Spring Lake, Mich., who accompanied him, they would stop along the way and troop through junkyards scattered with old cars, “and Jim [would] have stories about every single car before it has been processed. He’s amazing.”

Luikens bought his first car, a 1959 DeSoto, with money he earned from his Grand Rapids Press paper route of three years. And this car-loving gentleman made his last home – literally – in what was the original Verhage Chrysler Plymouth dealership building on 32nd Avenue in Hudsonville, Mich. He bought it in 1999, and it served as his Rise Sales office and living quarters.

His office, Kaminski wrote, “is loaded with racing memorabilia. NASCAR die-cast cars are everywhere. Life-size cardboard cutouts of NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers Kyle Busch and Dale Earnhardt Jr. stand on the office floor. An autographed hood from one of Johnny Benson’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Toyota Tundra race trucks is on display.

“While his office has a strong NASCAR flavor, drag racing is his favorite form of motorsport,” Kaminski said. “He drag raced a 1957 Pontiac Chieftain Station Wagon at the U.S. 131 Motorsport Park in Martin through the late 1960s and early 1970s. He later raced a 1971 Pontiac T-37.”

Indeed, is favorite form of motorsports was drag racing, but he worked with many series, including go-karts, short track, and SCCA [sports car racing].

Multi-time NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster divisional and national champion Bill Reichert, of nearby Owosso, Mich., has been one of Luikens’ clients, and he has presented Luikens with duplicate Wally trophies that stand in a special cabinet. Luikens, too, has his own hardware. He has said his biggest professional honor was for the Best New Catalog at the 1993 SEMA Show. He produced it for Mangels Wheels of Sao Paolo, Brazil. He told Kaminski, “To go to Las Vegas and have your work named the best of the best by your peers is a thrill that will probably never be exceeded for me. It must be the equivalent of winning the Daytona 500 for a NASCAR driver.”

He also was winner of the Gold Medallion International Media Award, presented by the International Society for Vehicle Preservation for his article that saluted the 190SL Exhibition Car, a tribute to the original 1954 New York show car.

“He was a special friend, very professional, and committed to the sport of drag racing. I will miss Jim very much,” John Waldie said, remembering the pal who was intelligent, funny, and had an easy laugh and a playful, cleanly mischievous side to him, too.

Friends and family are invited to join one another April 23 at the Gilmore Car Museum for one more good-bye to Luikens, who is survived by his partner Joyce France-Smith, his daughter Lisa (Dion) Ellis; his grandchildren, Sam, Rebecca, Draeden, and Dylan. He leaves one brother, Thomas (Mary) Luikens; four sisters, Patricia Cramer, Catherine Baar, Mary Clare (Robert) Huston, Theresa (David) Webster, and many nieces and nephews. Jim also leaves behind his business partner of 24 years, Cyndi Vander Horn.

The Gilmore Car Museum is at 6865 Hickory Road, Hickory Corners, Mich. 49060.

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