Our love for cars

You could say that our fascination with cars came from our father. In his younger years, he owned and modified many of the old cars that we work with today. By the time we were driving age, it was natural that we would develop a similar interest.

My name is Tyler and my first project was a 1952 Chevrolet pick-up, and it was also my first in dealing with modification. I replaced its older 216 engine with a faster, more modern Chevrolet 6-cylinder. My knowledge of cars had come primarily from Dad's farming equipment and what I learned in high school shop class. Actually, this project of mine earned me the annual "Monkeywrench Award" at the end of my junior year. During college, I moved on to muscle cars. I was interested in seeing how I could modify them to make them faster, sleeker, and more to my taste.

Trace was also very enthusiastic about the older cars. He always had a hot rod or a muscle car, and even now, has an ongoing project in the garage. It's a 1972 Ford F-100 pick-up and is - of course - outfitted with a set of our glass.

The pick-up has gone through two sets of glass: we switched from a shade of bronze to the new PPG "Chroma" UV blue instead. We thought that looked better...and we're helping PPG promote the product. Trace's passion comes from fixing up cars to match his personality and when he's satisfied with the end result, he moves on to the next car.

Both of us love working with cars. We like the idea of making them unique, or making a car that couldn't run before, run better than ever.

How we got started in glass

Going into the automotive glass business for us was a bit of a change of pace; we're both educated and experienced in the heavy equipment & automotive industries. We've been business partners (along with our older brother Troy) for years, but in late 2004 we learned that Sanders Reproduction Glass was for sale and decided we couldn't pass up this amazing opportunity to get involved in something we all really love: old cars.

We've owned the company for over 2 years now and it is everything we'd hoped it would be.

The perks of the business

One of the best things about this business is the relationships we have with our customers. There is a natural bond around our mutual love for cars and that gives us a lot of joy. We love hearing our customer's stories about their cars and what they want to achieve.

Unlike other businesses, we are very fortunate in that our customers are doing something that they love, and they bring that attitude with them when looking for the right glass. We get to help them enjoy their project, give them ideas and see how our glass can make their car look really nice - what could be better than that?

The learning experience

Another great aspect of this business is that as we work with more customers and their cars, we are constantly increasing our library of knowledge about the vehicles. Currently we have between 9500 and 10,000 different patterns for cars, but as we come across different or custom made cars, that number will keep expanding.

We want to learn more and more about our customers' cars, their glass needs and the possibilities of the materials and equipment that we use. For example, we recently added a Computer Numerical Control (CNC) waterjet cutting machine to our inventory of glass finishing tools. This will enable us to increase accuracy even more than before, plus using water for cutting helps preserve the reliability of the glass.

Every order we do is custom made to for each customer. We use our patterns or cut the glass to specification. For us to be our absolute best, we work with our customers to learn about their cars and what they need.

It's our passion, and it's what we do.

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