BOCA RATON, Fla. — Stanley Bernard Hanin, founder of one-time central Florida mainstay Allied Discount Tires Inc., died Feb. 22 in Boca Raton at age 86.
Hanin's Allied Discount Tires chain of stores gained widespread attention after he enticed his friend and golfing buddy Sam Behr to deliver the dealership's enchantingly honest tagline, "Tires Ain't Pretty," in an endearing Alabama drawl.
Hanin built the business to over 40 stores in just 13 years before selling it in 1989 to enjoy an early retirement.
Below is a 1988 commercial for Allied featuring Behr:
Hanin was born on July 4,1936, in Philadelphia. According to his obituary, he admitted he wasn't exactly the easiest child to raise. As he always put it, he never went to a school that he didn't get kicked out of.
Eventually his father sent him to military school, where he learned the discipline and tenacity that served him so well in life and business, according to his obituary. He left military school early to work with his father, and he learned the tire business at his father's knee.
The formative years working for his father were cut short when Clem Hanin died when Stanley was 23 years old. Hanin was left with a bankrupt business, a mother to care for, two younger siblings to raise and his own family with a newborn daughter.
Hanin often quoted Winston Churchill to describe one of the most important lessons he learned in life: "Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts."
When he was 37, Hanin moved his family to Florida and bought a motorcycle sales business. Within six months, the business was defunct.
He rebounded shortly thereafter, founding Allied Discount Tires in 1976, selling tires out of a few square feet in someone else's store.
