Introduction of Vehicle Body Repair Shop Sponsor Collides with Reality
2025 May 31
2025 June 13 (UPDATE)

It is the age-old conundrum of whether something is malfeasance or incompetence.

At the beginning of the May 24^th show, hosts Don Grantham and John Ingram welcomed Classic Chevrolet Collision Center’s Director Brian Cunningham to the KLIF’s Cruise Control radio show. They were gleeful at having a body shop to recommend to the audience members.

But then the prevarication began.

Cruise Control with Don Grantham and John Ingram
KLIF 570 AM - May 24, 2025 08:31AM

Don Grantham
"And joining us today on the roundtable from Grapevine, Texas… Director of the
Classic Chevrolet Collision Center, which I'm getting better at saying, Mr. Brian Cunningham…
which is another ‘C’, as a matter of fact.
Welcome, my friend."

Brian Cunningham
"Good morning."

Don Grantham
“So if you can't tell, we're kind of jazzed about this because we've been looking for a body shop to be on the show for a decade, probably.
It may could be longer than that.”

John Ingram
“At least a decade.”

[Some extraneous interjections omitted for readability.]

Grantham and Ingram both claimed that the radio show had been without a recommended body shop for over a decade. They repeated that claim twice more (10:30AM, 10:56AM) before the show was over. This was false information.

[EXPAND]

Less than three years ago, the Sewell Collision Center was a full sponsor of the radio show. That body shop had prominent product placement on the home page of the show’s website for over a decade (2009-2022). It also had its own commercials aired during the show.

Wheels with Ed Wallace
KLIF 570 AM – August 6, 2022 10:17AM

Sam Sexton
“[…] You’ve had a wreck.
Let the Sewell Collision Center
remove that memory. […]”

Possibly taking inspiration from that commercial, did Grantham and Ingram want to remove that memory of a lost sponsor (Sewell)?

The explanation for the body shop fiction is either an intentional deception or incompetence. It has been less than three years since Sewell went their separate way from Wheels (now Cruise Control). It was not a decade or more. Did they know that and mislead the audience, which would be malfeasance. Or did they forget their own recent history, hence incompetence.

To conclude; they knew, or should have known. So which trait do you prefer for your automotive radio car hosts: malfeasance or incompetence? None of the above is the correct answer.

-- 2025 JUNE 13 (UPDATE) --

The running of commercials during the June 7^th radio show for the Classic Chevrolet Collision Center confirms that the vendor is a full sponsor of the Cruise Control Radio Show. And their appearance on the gateway page establishes that the referrals on the gateway page are paid placements, albeit with a few anomalies carried over from the Wallace era.

On June 11^th or 12^th of 2025, the gateway page of the Cruise Control radio show’s website (MYAUTOMOTIVESOURCE.COM) was updated with a referral to the Classic Chevrolet Collision Center. That is almost three weeks after the association was announced on May 24, 2025. At that time, the hosts committed to adding this entry to the website the following week. The hosts did not do what they said they would do.

Classic Chevrolet Collision Center’s inclusion within the show’s website is far less prominent than what was Sewell’s placement. Sewell’s ad was an image posted on Inside Automotive’s front page. It was not buried away in a referral list on the purchase page. And whereas Classic’s body shop repairs many makes in addition to Chevrolet, Ingram and Grantham shortchange the sponsor as the presentation implies repairs solely for that one make.

-- Related Stories --

2023/02/18 - Sewell Subaru Reappears on Inside Automotive, as Ed Wallace Yearns for a Journey to Infiniti and Beyond

2022/10/08 - Sewell Automotive Company Stops Advertising on KLIF Wheels with Ed Wallace