CV Products
In 1988 in High Point, N.C., Clyde Vickers opened CV Products in a 1,200-square-foot shop that grossed $600,000 its first year. Today, his Thomasville location, started in 1996, has four buildings for a combined 93,000 square feet. Add to that the Mooresville retail location, 16,000 square feet, and you can see just how far Vickers has come. Oh, and CV Products’ sales are currently in the $30 million range.
Out of the product line offered, 40 percent are manufactured by CV Products: engine parts, valve train and drive system components, pulleys, belt drive systems, chassis parts; and is used by motorsports customers in stock car, dirt late model, sprint car, drag, formula one and Indy car racing.
When Vickers was a boy, his father, a truck driver, use to take him all over the Carolinas to races. He fell in love and even drove in the Southern Late Model series (which morphed into the NASCAR Busch Series). He drove 10 years from the early ’70s into the ’80s. His career path included working at car dealerships and a stint at Richard Childress Racing in the engine department. In 1988 everything changed.
The Thomasville campus houses a distribution center that includes the corporate offices, a retail store and the marketing and sales staff. The 35,000 square foot manufacturing plant is chock full of high-tech equipment and the engineering staff, an incredibly talented group of young folks who design and execute new and revamp products. The hard-coat and anodizing building runs all day, and parts can be processed in different colors! The 10,000 square foot CV Xchange is the newest venture, a retail shop of parts that may have been discontinued. Sort of like bargain basement shopping for motorsports customers.
CV Products still produces a print catalog and even hauls parts to different types of races to support teams at track. Its website offers parts, tech tips and customer service. Take a look for yourself.