Cougarjack wrote:
We didn't learn about winching in Dick Hickey advertisements.
and AP Bloom responded:
*** Who is Dick Hickey?
listers and M35 products guy:
Forgive my lapse, but those of us who have been around for a while remember Dick Hickey and his 4WD catalog. Dick was going to revolutionize the winching world with his "Hickey Sidewinder" electric winch. His tabloid approach to the marketing of 4WD equipment was second only to Ron Popeil of "Ronco Vegomatic" fame. Hickey used to show a Chevy Blazer winched completely off the ground, up a tree, hanging from the winch cable like a shot duck. This ad, plus a lot of his other irresponsible drivel, must have caused a LOT of winching accidents. While I don't know this for sure, I DO know that winches began appearing on everything from pickup trucks to hand trucks. You could fit two of these under a Volkswagen.
The Hickey winch itself had a big flat thin vertical drum instead of the usual horizontal one. It was actually a good winch in its class, with a drum tensioner and roller fairlead, similar in capabilities to the Warn 8000 series, but it had the same shortcomings as any electric front mount winch....
it drew huge amounts of current, it required a very expensive kit to mount it to your vehicle, and it was electric, so it was prone to burn things up. It was front mounted, so it only pulled you farther into a place you shouldn't have been anyway. Add to that the obvious irritation of falling 16 feet when you jumped out the driver's side door and you see why the marketing failed. Still, it was a cute, albeit poorly thought out ad campaign.
Somehow, Hickey got left behind on the GREAT WINCH RUSH, and the sidewinder fell into obscurity. We now credit him for the development of the first ANTIQUE WINCH OF THE FUTURE. Hickey was truly a man of vision!
Jack, adding pertinent historical facts
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 05 2001 - 00:40:34 PDT