Mr. Hobby Man - Blue Ridge, GA
Posted by: 
debbado
N 34° 51.125 W 084° 20.275
16S E 743386 N 3859872
Mr. Hobby is located in front of the Free Time Hobbies store off Highway 76/515.
Waymark Code: WMPMYB
Location: Georgia, United States
Date Posted: 09/23/2015
Views: 3
Mr. Hobby (formerly known as Mr. Bendo) use to be on top of Ced's Mufflers shop in Chicago for 50 years. He came to Free Time Hobbies in 2015.
You can read his story here (
visit link)
Interesting story about this giant on Ced's Mufflers facebook page... (
visit link)
February 7, 2013 ·
LOCAL CHICAGO ICON GETS HEAD TRANSPLANT !!!
On June 18th of 2010 Chicago had some high winds and bad storms that took off the very large head and the torso of the famous “Mr Bendo” statue that sits on top of the Ced’s Mufflers & Auto Repair on Grand Ave.
The well known face was scheduled to be repaired 2 days later, but was stolen right in front of the shop in the middle of the night. A police report was filed with Chicago PD, which surprisingly did not detour thieves from trying to steal the torso of the poor damaged statue. One thief fell through the shop skylight which set the alarm off, thankfully scaring them off and leaving behind the top half.
We reached out to our community to help locate it, which led to a few leads but in the end we have not been able to locate it. For 2 years we have been searching for someone to help him be more than half a man.
We have now found that someone in local Chicago resident Jim Matthiessen, who has offered to donate his labor to re-create an exact reproduction of the original Muffler Man head. Jim grew up seeing the well known statue, and would love to see it back greeting the customers and travelers on Grand Ave. The project is planned to be finished in the next 6 months and new added lights to showcase the local landmark.
Ced’s Muffler and Auto Repair is located at 3940 w. Grand Ave.