Flair Fuels Limo Makers’ Business
In the back lot of Krystal Koach’s manufacturing plant, behind rows of tasteful black, white and gray stretch limousines, sits the $75,000 Pepto-Bismol-pink fantasy of a Russian rock star.
The white exterior shimmers with glitter. The interior gapes like a giant pink leather mouth. Cushy pink couches for eight. Pink carpet. Even the wood paneling is stained pale pink.
Fiber-optic stars twinkle in the sun roof’s glass. The wet bar is mirrored, and neon tubing around the privacy glass changes color every five seconds.
Peering inside, John Beck, Krystal Koach’s executive vice president, wrinkled his nose.
“It makes us nauseous to make this kind of stuff,” Beck said. He spent two days working out design details with the singer, who also bought a red limo with a blue-gray interior. “But on the other hand, we build what our clients want.”
The longhaired Russian rocker is one of scores of clients--from Arab sheiks wanting stretch Chevy Suburbans for hunting, to Atlantic City casino owners, to Japanese funeral home representatives--who trek to the Orange County area each year to purchase limousines in the West Coast hub of limo-making.
Three of the nation’s 20 certified coach builders, from high-tech Krystal Koach, which bills itself as the world’s largest maker of limousines, to Fountain Valley’s Classic Limousine, which custom designs coaches for a worldwide clientele, are based in the area.
“We’ve got that California flair,” said Edward P. Grech, 38, Krystal Koach’s president and founder. “People want to come here. We capture sales because we’re here.”
The 13-year-old Brea firm produces 65 to 70 limos a month, plus 25 hearses, and is just starting to make shuttle buses in its new state-of-the-art 134,000-square-foot plant, he said. Classic Limousine builds flat-bed, stretch Cadillac “temple trucks” for Japanese funeral homes, which erect ornate gold-carved temples on the limo beds to transport the dead. Other Asian funeral homes order sleek black hearses with extra seats for the family members and stereo systems to pipe music into the back.
“Their custom is to take the last ride with the person,” said Nick Giacobone, Classic Limousine’s president and chief designer.
Two years ago, Classic Limousine built a bubble-top limousine for a Tokyo wedding chapel that rose an extra eight inches over the rear seat to accommodate elaborate bridal hairstyles.
“That was the oddest,” said Ted Carlson, Classic Limousine’s vice president of sales and marketing, flipping through photo albums of the company’s creations--including an air-bag cover that hid a safe, a Japanese businessman’s double karaoke machines and the armored Cadillac driven by the president of the Hyundai Motor Co. in Seoul, South Korea.
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Giacobone couldn’t resist stashing a bottle of Grey Poupon mustard in the elm burl and rosewood-covered cabinets of the stretch Rolls-Royce the firm built for the head of Sapporo Beer.
Current orders from Saudi Arabia include requests for headliners and seats to be covered in fabrics by clothing designer Gianni Versace, he said.
Giacobone created an industry sensation two years ago with a new interior design called “the Wave,” complete with swooping, black-and-white leather seats, two televisions, a flat floor and “custom dancing lights.” Eighty-five percent of the $65,000 Lincoln Town Car limousines the company now sells (how many it refuses to reveal) are now Waves.
“Personally, I think it’s the nicest looking interior I’ve ever seen,” said Mark Becker, managing editor of the Redondo Beach-based trade magazine Limousine & Chauffeur. “It’s the buzz of the industry as far as creativity is concerned.”
A third company, Tiffany Coach in Corona, also customizes to its clients’ sometimes exotic demands, said finance manager Robert Curtis.
A few years ago, the company stretched Elton John’s frosty green Rolls-Royce and added a pop-up Roland electric keyboard, he said.
Although the vast majority of Krystal Koach’s orders come from the nation’s 9,000 limousine rental services--which typically want standard, workhorse limos--the firm also takes orders for more specific tastes.
Since 1990, the firm has sent 30 heavily insulated, sand tire-equipped, stretch Chevy Suburbans to members of the Saudi royal family for use as hunting vehicles.
CLS Transportation, a Los Angeles-based limousine company, orders Krystal Koach limousines made to order for celebrities, Beck said. The stars use the cars when they’re in town and CLS rents them when they’re not, he said.
“They want killer stereos--$18,000 CD stereo systems,” Beck said. “You don’t pick up somebody that’s a big-time rocker with a stock stereo. Not if you want them back.”
Beck recently got a call from a man in Israel who found the firm’s year-old World Wide Web site on the Internet and asked about buying a fleet of hearses, he said.
Beck does draw the line. “I had a guy request a bathroom in a vehicle,” he said. “I refused at any price.”
