Stimus was best known for putting a $100,000 bounty on the head of former Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi and pounding vehicle hoods with wrestler Dusty Rhodes

Tom Stimus, the Bradenton car dealer known for putting a $100,000 bounty on the head of former Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi and pounding vehicle hoods with wrestler Dusty Rhodes in his blustery television commercials, died Monday morning at age 79 in an assisted-living facility in Sarasota.

“His life was the car business,” his son, Burt Stimus, said. “All he talked about was cars.”

Stimus said his father died of dementia and had been in assisted living for the past year.

In his prime, his father was “vibrant, exciting, motivating – one of the most electric people to be around,” Burt Stimus said. “He knew how to motivate people and make them smile.”

Stimus’ parents left him in the care of his paternal grandparents in Rochester, New York, when he was 5, his son said. He remained in their care until he was 20. “He told me he grew up poor, that he never had anything,” his son said. “He told me there was only way to go and that was straight up.”

At 13, the future multimillionaire got a job washing cars.

For 15 years, he worked as general manager of a Chevrolet dealership in Rochester.

In the late 1970s, a friend encouraged him to move to Bradenton and loaned him money to buy a gas station on U.S. 41, his son said.

Stimus converted the property into a used car dealership with a large showroom.

“He said other car dealers in Bradenton were asleep and that he was going to wake them up,” his son remembered.

Stimus became a local celebrity with his “Tom Stimus No. 1” television commercials. Rhodes, a popular TV wrestler who would become a lifelong friend, often joined him before the cameras – slapping the hoods of vehicles and urging viewers to get a deal from Stimus.

Yet his unique knack for publicity called for drawing attention to himself in ways intended to generate talk about more than car prices.

In 1979, after the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, he invited the exiled monarch to live in his home. He rented an airplane with a banner that read: “The Shah is coming to Tom Stimus.”

Stimus achieved widespread fame when he started publishing ads in which he put a $100,000 bounty on the head of Libyan dictator Col. Moammar Gaddafi, a declared enemy of the United States. The offer landed him an interview on “The Phil Donahue Show.”

For several years, he owned and invested heavily in the DeSoto Speedway – which attracted such big names in racing as Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Richard Petty. Stuntsman Robbie Knieval jumped 30 stationwagons on a motorcycle there.

Yet Stimus, who also had car dealerships in Georgia, eventually fell on hard times financially. He closed his dealerships in 1992 and filed for protection from creditors under federal bankruptcy laws.

He later opened another business in Bradenton called the Car Depot.

In 1997, Stimus was indicted on federal charges of dealing in stolen weapons based on allegations that stolen property – including guns and ammunition – were stored in a minivan and later in a motor home at the dealership. The charges were later dismissed.

In 1996, a creditor filed for a court order to take possession of Stimus’ remaining car lot for failure to pay rent.

Stimus soon slipped from public view and went to live on farmland he owned in Ohio. For the past five years, he resided near his son Burt in Naples.

Stimus, who was married several times, leaves his sons Burt and Todd, daughter Betsy and 10 grandchildren.

“Most of his family are in Georgia,” Burt Stimus said. His survivors are likely to arrange a memorial service in Perry, Georgia.