It's hard to believe that a successful businessman's first intelligible phrase was "Hot car, Momma," but it gets easier whey you know the man in question is Bobby Likis. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1942, a two-year-old Bobby uttered these words after due deliberation from the back seat of his daddy's 1940 Ford Coupe during a July hot spell, and his first clear phrase seemed to prophesy his direction in life.

Bobby moved to Pensacola, Florida in 1960, and his formative years come straight from American Graffiti and were spent ignoring his studies and working on cars and girls, not necessarily in that order. Though intrigued greatly by the fairer sex, tinkering with automobiles became Bobby's obsession, and the hot-rod, drag-racing atmosphere of the early '60s became Bobby's real school. In the deep South, cheeseburgers, hangin' out, and chopped and channel flat-head ruled the day during that brief, unique, and vaguely innocent post-war/pre-war era, and Bobby was right smack in the middle of it all.

Bobby built and rebuilt racecar engines with a knack and assiduous care that bordered on vengeance. He loved cars, and it showed in every automobile he took apart, put together, renovated, or simply admired. Before Bobby left his teens, he wasn't considered just a mechanically inclined young man who fooled around with junkers and jalopies. He was roundly acknowledged as an automotive expert by anyone who really knew cars.

Today, Bobby owns and operates Car Clinic Service, a 15,000 square-foot facility, specializing in one-stop, full-service automative maintenance, repair, inspection, and information. Here he remains "hands-on" in the wonderful world of automobiles and automobile owners. On Saturday, he preaches for two hours what he practiced for 50 hours during the previous week!

Bobby is also extremely active in the community. Serving on the Board of Directors for United Cerebral Palsy and WSRE Public Television, he raises funds for these organizations via the UCP Telethon in January and the bi-annual televised WSRE drives. In addition, he is a member of the Pensacola Junior College Automotive Service Management Technology Advisory Committee, the Automotive Service Association (ASA), the Hockey League Advisory Board, the Pensacola Opera Board, and the National Association of Radio Talk Show Hosts. Bobby is a Florida Certified Arbitrator for the Ford Motor Company and serves as technical advisor for a statewide law firm. Bobby was honored by the American Marketing Association with "Marketer of the Year". He also won a Silver Addy for the Bobby Likis Car Clinic television program, which also captured the highest ratings in its time slot (15-4).