Greg Brown bought his first Corvette when he was 24, and over the quarter-century since then has owned four others. He and his wife each own one now. The longtime member of the Spokane Corvette Club rattles off trivia about the venerable Chevrolet-built sports car like a master aficionado.


It only stood to reason, then, that two years ago, after losing his job and struggling to find a new one, he would chose to make Corvettes his full-time pursuit. He founded a company here called Kewl Inc. that makes mostly under-hood and interior show-car parts for the current-generation Vette, the C5.


Though the business occupies an older Vinegar Flats homestead in southwest Spokane and employs only two other people, it now sells 18 products through a host of distributors and is developing six other products, Brown says. It already in 2003 has tripled its volume for all of last year, expects to finish the year with more than $500,000 in sales, and is on a growth track that should put it over $1 million in sales in 2004, he says.


Its a dream come true, but I had no idea what this was going to entail, Brown says, citing growth-related cash-flow headaches. If I got out my original business plan, which was 48 pages long its almost laughable now.


The company sent out its first full-fledged catalog last month, and expects to reap additional widespread exposure from an anticipated feature article within the next six months or so in Corvette Fever magazine, a national publication.


Kewls under-hood products include molded-plastic engine, intake-manifold, fender, radiator, fuse-box, battery, coolant-tank, and washer-tank covers. All are available in a range of C5 factory colors, some with a couple of lettering and trim color options as well. For the interior, the company makes leather armrest covers and sport trays for holding drinks, compact discs, and cell phones. For the outside of the car, it makes color-coordinated front and rear license plate surrounds.


None of the products require permanent modifications to Corvettes, and all are designed for easy installation by the cars owners. Retail prices begin at about $60 for a license plate surround, and go up from there. For example, a pair of engine coverswith a complimentary matching-color oil capretails for about $270, and Brown says he recently had a repeat customer order almost a complete set of under-hood items totaling about $1,300.


About 80 percent of the companys sales are wholesale; the rest are retail sales made mostly via its Web site, www.kewlauto.com. Brown says, though, that he plans to push hard in coming years to build up the retail side of the business, including by launching a retail catalog and hiring someone to do focused marketing at major national auto shows.


Even with the companys anticipated growth next year, he says he doesnt expect Kewl to add more than a few employees. Instead, he says, it will continue to expand relationships with outside fabricators and suppliers, several of them local, on whom it has relied thus far for almost everything except for some finish work, packaging, and shipping.


I have absolutely no intentions of vertically integrating, he says, using corporate jargon that refers to absorbing into a single company all aspects of a products manufacture from raw materials to distribution.


Brown has plenty of experience in the corporate world. He says he worked for a total of 25 years for two of Spokanes largest manufacturers, Key Tronic Corp. and Itron Inc., in positions ranging from technician and quality-assurance manager to production manager and director of operations. He lost his job with the latter company about four years ago in a work-force reduction.


Unable to find new employment, Brown says he finally arrived at the conclusion that, If nobody else would hire me, Id hire me. Despite his fabrication experience, he says, Whats funny is, I found out I had a knack for sales and marketing.


He says he initially spent a lot of time on the Internet looking at what people were or werent doing for Corvettes, then launched his enterprise with an initial product that basically was a dressed-up set of factory-made engine covers.


Amidst that modest production start, though, he says he also devoted a lot of energy to creating for the company a larger-than-reality public image. With help from local vendors, he says, he developed sharp-looking warranty, installation, and packaging materials. He also leased office-warehouse space on east Trent Avenue, and set up a toll-free 800 number, fax line, and multiple e-mail addresses, partly to convey that Kewl was a thriving concern.


On the product-promotion side, he secured the requisite General Motors Corp. licensing and put together marketing literature and CDs containing photos of Kewls still just-emerging product line, then mailed those materials to 14 distributors. The marketing pitch drew considerable attention, he says, and soon several of the nations largest Corvette-parts distributors were displaying the companys products in their catalogs.


Thanks in large part to that exposure, Kewl now is shipping about 1,400 molded-plastic parts and 50 sets of leather armrest covers a month, with new orders rising steadily, Brown says.


Using local suppliers


A small handful of Kewls products still are GM-made parts that it buys from Appleway Automotive Group here and dresses up with custom paint and trim. Most, though, have been designed in-house and are custom-molded by Dennis Fitzgerald, of Spokanes Fitzgerald Ice Sculpting, which does plastic-molding work as a sideline, and finished and painted by Bennys Auto Body, of Post Falls, Brown says. Royal Upholstery & Fabric Center, of Spokane, is producing the leather armrest covers for Kewl.


We source everything locally that we can, Brown says.


Luann Poler, who serves as operations manager and formerly worked with Brown at Itron, does the manual finish work of applying lettering and trim on some of Kewls products. She also handles all of the purchasing, packaging, and distribution. The companys other employee, Dave Mellick, is shop manager.


I am the dreamer, Brown says. I come up with the ideas, and Dave takes my ideas and makes them real.


He says he and Mellick will create a version of a new product in design clay or Bondo, a popular fill material used for auto body repairs, using his Corvette or his wifes as a prototype test vehicle. He says he hopes eventually to have the company developing two new products a month.


The property that Kewl occupies doesnt look at all like the headquarters for a growing young Spokane business. It includes an older, converted residence, a small shop building, and a larger, unmarked storage building.


Brown says the company moved there about a year and a half ago. The property formerly was owned by his wifes father, who died in April of 2002, and his wife grew up there, he says. The family property, which also includes two nearby rental homes, is located in a mixed residential-business area, so it made sense to move Kewl there from the Trent location for cost reasons when the opportunity arose, he says.


Inside the home, the living roomcluttered with a mishmash of computer equipment, office furnishings and records, makeshift shelving, Kewl products, and other odds and endsserves for now as the companys offices.


Packaging materials and finished products awaiting shipment sit in other parts of the house. The kitchen is now a product-finishing and packaging area, and the oven even has been used for testing the effects of heat on materials used in the companys products.


Operating the company exclusively on a cash basis thus far, Brown says he has been frugal, but has spent aggressively in crucial areas, such as for computers and software. He says he has poured a lot of his own money into the enterprise and also has received key financial support from his retired father, Tom Brown, a former Darigold Farms CEO here.


Now, facing greater cash needs to fund projected growth, he says he is taking a toe-in-the-water look at possible financing options.


As far as daily operations, were solid as a rock financially, he says. However, he adds, Theres absolutely no way this company is going to stay the way it is.


The trials of operating a small business havent weakened Browns devotion to the car upon which the business depends.


The Corvette is Americas favorite sports car, he says unabashedly. Its an icon. Its part of American history and folklore.


General Motors has produced about 360,000 Corvette C5s since introducing that model in 1997, Brown says. The car has a starting retail price of about $44,000, but sells for closer to $60,000 when loaded with accessories, he says. This will be the last production year for that model, he says, but Brown expects to derive even stronger sales from second and third owners of C5s. Such owners tend to be more prone to customize and to buy aftermarket parts because, by then, the cost of the car alone isnt such a huge investment.


Separately, Kewl already is looking ahead to the introduction of the C5s successor and catering to the customizing whims of that cars owners.


When the C6 comes out in 2005, I think its really going to stimulate our company, he says. It will be a very popular Corvette, probably the most popular yet.