K&F Show #374 – BONUS: Remembering Ben Jones – The Man Behind Cooter Davenport

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Welcome to the official Kibbe and Friends Show with myself, Justin “Corndog” Cornette, and Show Producer Bernie McPartland! With this show we’re basically setting up the Boars Nest for the entire automotive media world to swing through for a couple watered down beers, stale popcorn, and fantastic waitresses. You can find every episode here on The MuscleCar Place as well as iTunes, Pandora, iHeart Radio, and Google Play. From time to time we’ll also be posting video clips and full shows to The Kibbe and Friends YouTube channel. If you click the “Download” link at the top of this post you’ll be able to stream it on your phone directly. You can also pull the RSS feed as well.

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Remembering Ben Jones:

Our Conversation with the Man Behind Cooter Davenport

This isn’t the episode we expected to release this week. With the passing of Ben Jones, we decided to step away from our normal Kibbe & Friends format and go back into the archives for a conversation that means considerably more to us today than it did when we recorded it.

Back in January of 2019, thanks to our friend Mark Bradley, I had the opportunity to interview Ben ahead of the 40th anniversary celebration of The Dukes of Hazzard. Ben, of course, played Cooter Davenport — mechanic, tow-truck driver, honorary Duke family member, and one of the most recognizable characters from one of the most successful television shows of its era.

Looking back now, I’m simply grateful we got the opportunity.

Ben had actually listened to our show before coming on, which surprised me at the time. He hadn’t just sampled a few minutes, either. He had listened closely enough to know about the goofy Dukes clips and outtakes we played at the end of our episodes. As a guy who grew up listening to radio dramas before his family even had electricity, he told us those clips worked like radio theater because the listener could build the scene in his own imagination.

That was Ben.

He could take what seemed like a simple question and turn it into a story.

“I’d Still Be Cooter”

One of the most memorable parts of our conversation came very early.

Ben talked about the incredible staying power of The Dukes of Hazzard. By 2019, the show was celebrating its 40th anniversary, yet fans were still discovering it, parents were introducing it to their children, replica General Lees were being built around the world, and tens of thousands of people continued showing up for Dukes events. Ben had accomplished quite a bit outside of Hazzard County. He had a long acting career, worked extensively in theater and even served in the United States Congress. But he joked that when he was in Congress, people didn’t want to talk to him about Congress. They wanted to talk about the Dukes.

As Ben put it, he could win the Nobel Peace Prize and he’d still be Cooter.

Then he added something important: That was a good thing. Ben understood that Cooter Davenport had become bigger than a television role. Cooter had become part of people’s childhoods and, eventually, part of their families.

Before Hazzard County

We went all the way back to Ben’s life before The Dukes of Hazzard, including a great story about his blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance in Smokey and the Bandit.

Ben recalled getting a call early in the morning after having been out all night. The production needed someone to play a truck driver, so he headed to the set, delivered what amounted to a few words of dialogue, went home and went back to sleep. He joked that when he woke up later, he thought being in the movie might have been some kind of hangover dream.

It wasn’t.

That led us into the Atlanta film community of the 1970s and eventually into Moonrunners, the 1975 film that became an important predecessor to The Dukes of Hazzard. Ben had appeared in Moonrunners and knew exactly what the producers were looking for when it came time to cast Cooter. He remembered living in the country near a local mechanic who wore a greasy ball cap, torn-off sleeves and usually needed a shave. Ben essentially walked into the audition looking like that guy, gave them his version of Cooter, and got the job.

The rest is television history.

Building Cooter Davenport

Something I appreciated about Ben was how seriously he took Cooter.

It’s easy to look at the early version of the character — wild, bearded, dirty, occasionally barefoot and every bit the “Crazy Cooter” described on the CB — and assume that’s all the character was supposed to be.

Ben didn’t see him that way.

He had spent years working as a serious stage actor before The Dukes of Hazzard, and he wanted Cooter to become a real person instead of a one-dimensional Southern stereotype. As the series progressed, Cooter cleaned himself up. Ben wanted viewers to see him working, going to church, helping the community and growing as a person. He also pointed out something pretty funny: Cooter may have been the only guy in Hazzard County who actually worked! Everybody wrecked cars, and Cooter had the only garage, the only tow truck and apparently the responsibility of putting all of Hazzard County back together again.

That evolution wasn’t accidental. Ben fought for it.

That also led into one of the subjects Dukes fans have wondered about for years: why Cooter disappeared from certain episodes. Ben was very candid about his disagreements with producers and his refusal to portray Southerners as simple stereotypes. He was willing to walk away rather than turn Cooter into something he didn’t believe in. We also discussed the period when John Schneider and Tom Wopat left the series. Ben shared his perspective on why they left, what happened while they were gone and how happy he was when the situation was finally resolved and Bo and Luke returned.

The Cars, Tow Trucks and Stunts

Naturally, this being Kibbe & Friends, we couldn’t have Cooter Davenport on the show without talking about cars. Ben laughed that we probably knew more about the General Lee mechanically than he did. On television Cooter would pop the hood, look around and diagnose the problem, but Ben readily admitted that when serious car guys started asking him exactly what was underneath those hoods, he was out of his league.

He did, however, have plenty of automotive stories.

We talked about Cooter’s Chevelle and Ben’s desire to give Cooter his own regular hot rod. His idea was an old Mustang painted gray that he wanted to call “Stonewall.” The producers never went for it, but it’s one of those great “what if?” pieces of Dukes history. Ben also remembered his favorite tow truck — the original Georgia-era truck — and the incredible sequences they filmed with it. Those early episodes were made before the production became the massive Hollywood machine it eventually became, and Ben described the cast and crew as essentially being turned loose in Georgia to make something fun.

Cars really crashed.

Parts really flew through the air.

Stuntmen really jumped Dodge Chargers.

Cameramen really stood terrifyingly close to the action.

Ben described it as being paid to play cowboys and Indians.

And he loved it.

The People Behind the Characters

The conversation also gave us the chance to hear Ben’s memories of the people behind some of our favorite Hazzard County characters. He remembered knowing John Schneider when John was still a teenage actor in Atlanta. He talked about working with Sonny Shroyer before The Dukes of Hazzard and shared memories of Denver Pyle, Jimmy Best, Sorrell Booke and the rest of the cast. One of the things that comes through throughout the interview is that these weren’t simply characters to Ben. These were people he’d worked beside for years. The chemistry we saw on television wasn’t entirely manufactured. They really did have fun making the show.

Keeping Hazzard County Alive

Perhaps Ben’s greatest contribution to The Dukes of Hazzard came after the television cameras stopped rolling. Ben and his wife Alma recognized early that the audience hadn’t disappeared. The fans were still there. So they opened Cooter’s Place. Then came museums, appearances, reunions and enormous DukesFest-style events. Ben told us about one Nashville event that drew roughly 100,000 people. Other gatherings brought 25,000 or 30,000 fans. Hundreds of General Lee replicas could appear in one location. Fans traveled from across the United States and around the world simply to spend a weekend in Hazzard County again. Those events also gave stunt performers, car builders, collectors and younger fans a place to become part of the Dukes community themselves.During the new introduction to this episode, Corndog and I reflected on exactly that. Cooter’s events weren’t merely autograph shows. They helped keep an entire community together. They gave fans somewhere to go and gave another generation of performers and builders an opportunity to become part of the story. Ben didn’t simply preserve his own character. He helped preserve The Dukes of Hazzard.

A Show That Never Really Went Away

Listening to this interview again in 2026, one part hits differently.

Ben talked about how The Dukes of Hazzard had never really gone away. He believed the show was timeless because underneath the cars, jumps, comedy and craziness was something incredibly simple: good guys, family, friendship and a world where the good guys eventually won.

Parents who watched it as children could sit down decades later and watch it with their own kids.

Ben knew that would continue.

In fact, during our conversation he acknowledged that he wasn’t getting any younger and said he knew The Dukes of Hazzard would continue long after he was gone.

Sadly, we’ve reached that day.

But he was right.

There will be another kid who sees a bright orange Charger fly through the air for the first time.

There will be another person who builds the General Lee they dreamed about owning as a kid.

There will be another generation that discovers Bo, Luke, Daisy, Uncle Jesse, Roscoe, Boss Hogg, Enos — and the crazy mechanic at the garage who was always ready when the Duke boys needed him.

And somewhere, somebody is still going to pick up that CB and say:

“Breaker one, breaker one. Might be crazy, but I ain’t dumb. Craaaazy Cooter coming at ya.”

We’re incredibly grateful Ben gave us this conversation and that we’re able to share it again now.

Rest in peace, Ben Jones.

Thanks for keeping Hazzard County alive.

And thanks for being Cooter.