Businessman and self-taught electrical engineer. Earl William Muntz was born in Elgin, Illinois, in 1914. An energetic and curious child, he built his first radio by the age of 8 and by age 20 was operating a used car lot in Elgin. He soon moved to California after discovering used cars commanded a higher price there and opened new car lots to sell cars he purchased cheaply in Illinois. His success continued as he opened several Kaiser-Frazer dealerships. He rejected the idea that car salesmen should project a conservative image and instead developed his "Madman" persona, a frenetic alter-ego who shouted, engaged in absurd stunts and made outrageous claims (for example, in advertisements he presented one model as the "daily special" and said if it did not sell that day he would destroy it with a sledgehammer). He spent heavily on large, brightly colored billboards and celebrities including Steve Allen would tell jokes about "Madman Muntz" on television. His efforts were so successful that his lots became the seventh most popular tourist attractions in Southern California. In 1948 he purchased the license to the Kurtis Kraft Sport, a sports car designed by Frank Kurtis, and redeveloped it into the Muntz Jet, widely recognized as the first personal luxury car. He began marketing electronics in 1946 and established Muntz TV, which sold highly- simplified, low-budget TV sets to residents of cities. By 1954 Muntz TV filed bankruptcy as the cost of competing company's products decreased. Next, he borrowed the basic design of the Fidelipac endless loop tape cartridge and repurposed it into the Muntz Stereo-Pak 4-track system for home and automotive use. Sales were successful until William Lear further developed the cartridge into the less-expensive, competing 8-Track cassette, which cut heavily into his business. He nevertheless continued operating a chain of electronics stores in Southern California and sold a wide array of audio and video equipment. In 1985, he was the first to offer the then-new Hitachi cellular phone for less than $1,000. He died in 1987 of lung cancer. His "Madman" marketing persona was later copied by others, including Jerry Carroll in commercials for New York retailer Crazy Eddie, and California auto salesman Cal Worthington. In 2001 he was inducted into the Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame and a documentary about him was released in 2007.