Brad and Jeff Danbom have purchased Cragar Industries, Inc. from Global Entertainment Corp. and are in the process of moving the company from Tempe, Ariz. to Milford, Iowa.
The existing distribution network will remain intact, according to Brad Danbom. “We plan on being much more aggressive with building brand equity and building relationships with the customers. We are also big believers in organic growth through new product development,” he says.
“We want to work more closely with the licensees,” Danbom continues. “There’s been a lot of confusion in the marketplace” over what Cragar actually does these days – which is applying the Cragar brand to a variety of products.
The brothers, “two guys from Iowa,” became aware that the fabled company was for sale because Jeff Danbom is a licensee of Cragar-style wheels for golf carts.
“Cragar is an icon,” observes Brad Danbom. “We both grew up around cars and our Dad has a collection of cars; this is a dream come true!”
There have been several ownership changes over the years, but Cragar remains “a name that runs deep in the history of the American automotive industry.”
The company was founded in 1931 by Crane Gartz and Harlan Fengler to make automotive cylinder heads. The Cragar name is derived from the first three letters of “Crane” and the first three letters of “Gartz.”
Throughout the 1940s and ‘50s Cragar built a variety of performance parts for hot rods. The firm’s assets were acquired in 1955 by Roy Richter’s Bell Auto Parts Co., known for producing a line of racing helmets. In 1964, “everything changed with the launch of the Cragar SS wheel – the most popular aftermarket wheel in automotive history.”
Richter retired in 1978.
By 1999, Cragar had changed its business model from manufacturing products to licensing other companies to use its trademarks on merchandise ranging from auto parts to toys and video games. Wheel production has been licensed to operations such as Weld Racing, the Carlisle Tire and Wheel Co. and Performance Wheel Outlet.
Global Entertainment bought Cragar in 2004. The Danbom brothers decline to say how much they paid for the company, although Brad reports that the transition from Arizona to Iowa should be an easy one: There are just two Cragar employees in Arizona, and neither of them is interested in moving to the Hawkeye State.
“We are currently leasing office spaces in Milford, Iowa,” Brad explains. “The site has lots of room to grow with 15 to 20 office spaces available.”
For more information, visit www.cragar.com.
