Thomas Hoyt Friedkin (August 29, 1935 – March 14, 2017) was an American billionaire businessman, airplane pilot, and stuntman who founded Gulf States Toyota Distributors.

After the war, his father opened Friedkin Aeronautics, a flight school in San Diego, California,[2] before founding Pacific Southwest Airlines in 1949 with a single leased DC-3.

GST is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Friedkin Group[5] and ranked 53rd on the Forbes 2008 list of America's Largest Private Companies with revenues estimated at $5.7 billion.

[6] GST's corporate headquarters is in west Houston with a 400,000-square-foot (37,000 m2) campus consisting of a five-story and a ten-story building, connected by a concourse and an eight floor parking garage.

By 2001, Tom Friedkin, then 66, had turned over responsibility for running the holding firm and its 3,000 employees to son Dan, but remained chairman and was content to dispense advice.

"[3] Friedkin was a Grand National Owner from 1965–1969 and two of his drivers, Jim Paschal and Bobby Allison were moderately successful.

According to Shelby: "I turned it down because I went to Lee Iacocca, and he told me not to take it because the domestic makers were going to push the Japanese back into the ocean.

[11] Friedkin also owned numerous warbirds, including a North American F-86F Sabre, a Chinese Air Force MiG-15, a Republic P-47D Thunderbolt and the General Motors version of a Grumman F4F Wildcat,[12] among other planes.

His son Dan is chairman of the family-owned holding company, Friedkin Group, which owns the auto distributorship Gulf States Toyota.