“ They still ride , but they want something they can zip around the neighborhood in . ... I make then street-ready .” He also makes them unique , turning a simple cart into an artistic , personal statement .
Pictures on Carrino ’ s wall displays former carts that have been transformed into tiny versions of Ford Model Ts , Ford F-150s and Jeeps , minus the emblems , of course , since Carrino doesn ’ t want challenges over copyright laws . He does most of the work himself , calling in a friend when he gets swamped and outsourcing some of the undercoating for the beach rides . Prices vary according to the work put into them , but Carrino pointed to a 1921 openwheel Roadster lookalike and said it costs about $ 7,000 .
Custom shop owner Harris is working on some metal flaked and pin-striped , candy-coated carts . “ I do all the paint work on them ,” Harris said , noting he ’ s been doing the carts for about four years . “ A Michigan company sends me 20-30 carts at a time .” Harris said his carts range in price from $ 7,000 to $ 45,000 . “ I can crank them out in a week .”
Ed “ Heavy ” Kastrul , owner of Midwest Motorcycle , taps Carrino for his own custom bike work , but said the business isn ’ t getting as many radical custom orders — the designs that start as a concept and are then parlayed into a steel and chrome existence — largely because of the high costs to build those types of rides .
Instead , Kastrul and others say , it is easier and cheaper to redesign an existing bike . “ The chopper market has really collapsed as far as value ,” Kastrul said . “ They used to make bikes that were factory-built custom bikes , like Iron Horse or Big Dog .”
But Kastrul said just like the muscle cars , the factory choppers and Harley-Davidson market has dropped , bringing down prices . “ There ’ s no longer a value to us or the consumer to start from scratch to build a bike ,” he said .
Custom-build bust
Brigit Duncan , owner of Brigit ’ s Custom Works , said back in the days of motorcycle-building reality television shows like American Chopper , her shop would put out around 40 full builds a year .
Not anymore .
Now , Duncan and her staff of three create about two a year , supplementing her bike sales , government service contracts and rebuilds , rather than the other way around . “ If I had to live off that , we ’ d be dead ,” Duncan said of the complete-custom builds .
Kastrul said he still gets the concept-to-completion build requests , too , but they typically come from the ultra-rich or , like one he ’ s working on now , from large companies looking to advertise a product . “ I just got a custom bike build for a liquor company that sells whiskey ,” Kastrul said . “ It is going to be a write off on taxes . It ’ s going to be part of their advertising budget , so they ’ re not as concerned with price .”
His average customer has more of an eye on the bottom line , he said , pointing to a man in a leather vest walking past him into his shop . “ That ’ s 99 percent of the people who walk in here ,” Kastrul said . “ It ’ s a pretty focused marketplace of white , male , over 50 .”
Soaring around Fly-In
Mike Kelly , the head golf pro at the Spruce Creek Country Club inside the Spruce Creek Fly-In , said roughly 90 percent of yearround homeowners use the carts to get around the gated community . “ They ’ ve always been used here ,” Kelly said . “ It ’ s all age groups .”
But he did say he ’ s seen a serious uptick in the high-end custom cart numbers , ranging from the understated classic transport to big , bold fourwheel drives and even those that really fit the community . They ’ re shaped like airplanes . “ It gets quite custom ,” Kelly said .
On a Latitude Margaritaville Facebook page , someone posted a photo of golf carts and the ensuing discussion produced mention of a Hemi-charged cart while another speculated about the usefulness of a golf cart with a margarita maker attached to the back .
At The Villages , a 55-plus community of 115,000 stretching between Lake , Marion and Sumter counties about 77 miles west of Daytona Beach , there are enough golf carts to put on an annual parade . Its popularity and another cart-builder there got Carrino ’ s attention .
“ I looked at the money he was making and looked at what I was making ,” he said , adding he knew then he wanted to build carts , but he didn ’ t want to do the same type of bedazzled carts he saw others doing .
Showing off his newest build — a beach vehicle made for a vendor who sells ice cream — he points to the former golf cart that boasts solar panels on the roof , cabinets and lots of walk-through space . It looks like a mini , sand-friendly bus . “ It ’ s four-wheel drive , so you can go on the beach . You ’ re not going to get stuck ,” Carrino said , beaming over his latest contract to do three more .
So , he ’ s loving his new passion and the freedom to turn into , well , whatever . Said Carrino : “ You can only do so much with a bike .”
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