Carts Gone Wild Through The Years - How We Started to Where We Are Now
Hello everyone! I kicked off our first blog last week and talked about gas vs. electric. I wanted to take a step back this week and tell OUR STORY and how Carts Gone Wild evolved. This topic is near and dear to my heart. It’s been a crazy ride since 2003. We put so much into building Carts Gone Wild. I hope you enjoy.
Point #1 is hard work. If you REALLY want something, then you better be ready to put blood sweat, and tears into it. Building this business was tough. Countless hours spent working while we both worked full time jobs. Evenings, weekends, holidays, etc. It’s part of building any business. Everything we did revolved around the business. Any business owner will tell you the same.
Point #2 is help from others. I want to start by thanking all these people. You can’t build a place like this without help. We’ve been very fortunate to be surrounded by EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE who believed in us and helped us along the way. In fact, I remember times when we would leave Toyota and the guys from my department would come and work all hours of the night to help us get started. So thankful to all those people. I especially want to thank our parents. I can’t begin to explain all the crazy things we had them doing to help us keep up. They sacrificed so much for us. We love everyone who helped dearly!
Point #3 is to go after your dreams and don’t procrastinate. I love this place. I love every day at Carts Gone Wild. I love our Team Members and our customers. I recently checked our database and we’ve had over 25,000 customers since 2007. Makes us so proud. I have days where I’m stressed or irritated, but I still love it like no other. Chase your dreams!
OUR STORY…..I’ve always loved automobiles and turning wrenches. Spent most of my high school & college wrenching in my free time. Buying/selling cars and boats after some minor restoration. I had 2 teachers. My father taught me a ton as a kid. My uncle Bob Wilson was like a 2nd father. He taught me how to do everything including engine building. Uncle Bob always told me to work hard and chase my dreams. I attended Indiana State University in 1991. I majored in Anheuser Busch that first year. Train wreck! I wasn’t ready for school and got sent home after the 2nd semester. Humbling experience! I went to Ivy Tech for Racing Technology in 1992 and moved to North Carolina. I lived in a race shop on a Coleman cot. True story! I worked for a fantastic guy named Charlie Sigmon and we traveled all over the country racing. We built and maintained ASA stock cars and NASCAR Late Models. I decided to go back to Indiana State in 1993 and get my degree for real the 2nd time around. I got lucky and landed a college internship at Toyota Manufacturing of Kentucky in the Engine Plant. Perfect fit. I loved Toyota and appreciated the culture. Later graduated from Indiana State in 1996. I remember this day like it was yesterday. Grateful I stuck it out. I accepted a job at Toyota’s new plant in Princeton, Indiana as an Engineer in the Quality Division. I met this amazing woman (Dana) who’s my business partner today. Dana is my wife and co-owner of Carts Gone Wild. Everyone will tell you that this poor woman puts up with a LOT OF MY CRAP! Dana also worked at Toyota in Ordering & Logistics. I realize that Toyota is a love/hate situation for people, but we owe everything to Toyota. I loved the company and what it did for us. Not just the job, but the learning was incredible. I was responsible for fun things like prototype vehicle testing and completed vehicle quality. Dana spent 12 years working for Toyota in foreign trade, logistics, and ordering. She served as the President of the Toyota Activities Committee. I mentioned Toyota’s culture earlier. Toyota is a different way of thinking. I live it every day and do things as a reflection of this culture. The most important thing we learned is Kaizen, which is a Japanese word meaning continuous improvement. We see things differently. I only see what needs improved vs the good. Yeah, it drives my Team Members bonkers, but I know it’s why we’ve been so successful. We never stop improving. It’s a culture of continual improvement.
I purchased an old clunker golf cart in 2003 with no business intentions. I wanted to learn how to paint. I painted it, added a few accessories, and quickly sold it on Ebay. I bought a couple more and the same result. Business started flowing. Friend of mine named Mark Roeder called and said his buddy needed a cool golf cart. He thought I should build it. Mark hooked me up with my all-time best customer named Ed Kucer. Great guy! Ed owns a handful of Subway restaurants in our area. Ed gave me a budget and told me to do whatever I wanted. Ed truly impacted my life with his belief in me. Since then, Ed has purchased 3 carts and is working on #4. My light switch came on after building Ed’s cart. I suddenly had a vision of starting a unique business which produced highly customized golf carts for the rich & famous.
Why the name Carts Gone Wild? Well, I was in the garage working one day and it just came to mind. I told my buddy Rocky who was there at the time. He busted out laughing and said, “now that’s a catchy name.” Rest is history. As you can imagine, we’ve had tons of laughing conversations about our name. We incorporated as Carts Gone Wild in 2007. I built one cart after another locally. People started calling for everything. We were working out of the house garage. I built a make-shift paint booth in our new home, which didn’t make Dana so happy. LOL. I don’t remember the exact date, but Toyota was offering a buy-out for employees during the recession. I asked Dana to take it, so that she could run the business and care for her parents. She looked at me like I was off my rocker. She says, “there’s no way I can do that.” Well she did it. Best decision we ever made. Carts Gone Wild became legit when she was able to focus 100% on the business. We grew and met our goals. Feels like we lost about 7 years of our life working 24/7 and not knowing if we were coming or going. Lots of sleepless nights, but it slowly started paying off as we gradually grew.
We’ve established a long list of famous clients and sports figures who have enjoyed our products over the years. NFL coaches, NFL team owners, NBA coaches, NHRA drag racing champions, etc. Our first major accomplishment took place in 2010 when we were awarded the Top 5 Dealer in the United States for Star Electric Vehicles. We won this award while working out of our garage and sold 325 Star Carts in 3 months with no showroom. Proud moment and a major stepping stone towards long term growth. We quickly outgrew our home-based location and moved to a legit location in 2010. The move didn’t last long. In April 2013, I resigned from Toyota after 15 years. I would focus all my efforts on the business. Shortly after, our good friends Dave & Marry Jo Hipp retired & put their business property up for sale. This was my ultimate dream property. I kept driving by with visions of what could be at this location. So, here we go again. I go home, sit Dana down, and tell her that we are going to purchase this property. The look on her face was priceless. Her response “there’s no way we can do that.” Well we did it. We purchased our dream property in 2013 and this is our current location. I call it our final destination. It’s a 8.5 acre facility in Haubstadt, Indiana. This move made us a legit player in the golf cart industry. Our fantastic Team Members have worked their tails off to improve this property and it continues getting better every day.
Today we have the ultimate one stop, complete custom golf cart shop. We specialize in everything from mild to wild. We incorporated several key principles from the Toyota Production System into our business, which includes continuous improvement, standardized work, team atmosphere, and many others. Our services include custom painting, air brush painting, fab shop, audio systems, battery sales, rentals, and service. We have a 7000 sq. ft. showroom to showcase our products and several buildings to warehouse our parts and accessories. Our forte is our certified refurbished golf carts. Most people can’t tell our used from new.
Carts Gone Wild was awarded Gibson County Business of the Year in 2015. We fulfilled another life-long dream in 2015, by funding an overseas business in Bimini, Bahamas called ABC Golf Cart Rental by Carts Gone Wild. Ambrose Francis runs our Bimini location. Ambrose rents golf carts to tourists and locals on the small island in the Bahamas, which provides a comfortable way of living for him, his wife, and 5 kids.
Carts Gone Wild thrives on providing a positive buying experience for customers. We truly enjoy our customers like family. We are blessed with a fantastic Team. Every one of them are like family to us. You will likely be greeted one of their smiling faces upon entering the door, followed by a hug when leaving. Many previous customers show up from time to time to see our latest creations or just to stop in and say hello. The dream that started in 2003 continues getting bigger and better every day. Please stop in and enjoy the experience if you are ever in the area.
THAT’S A WRAP FOLKS! I hope you enjoyed reading about “Our Story.” Please don’t forget to follow us on FB, Twitter, Instagram, etc.