The four store chain, The Specialists, AZ, began outfitting police and sheriff vehicles in Tucson almost a year ago and the division is closing in on car audio revenues already.
The new fleet division installs items such as prisoner cages, partitions, gun racks, emergency lighting, police radios, PAs and tracking systems in the vehicles. It started when a local sheriff department approached the shop because the commercial upfitter they worked with was taking too long on the job.
Many of the upfitters are not retail-minded and act more as government contractors, said Pete Riker Technical Director. “They say it will take a year to get on their schedule and do the work. We can schedule in a month and perform the work immediately once the equipment arrives.”
“We didn’t really know much about the full patrol build process, until the sheriff came to us. Their upfitter was so behind, they ordered 50 vehicles in 2023 and the upfitter hadn’t even started them,” said Riker
To learn what this kind of job entailed, they built a sample car, purchasing from vendors such as SoundOff Signal that sells emergency lights and control systems and Troy products, which manufactures metal components for police cars. The Specialists did the build for free, but the sheriff liked it so well, The Specialists got the contract. Now they are also outfitting police vehicles, undercover police and emergency vehicles. A typical full patrol build for one technician is a one to two week install, depending on the complexity. Unmarked units typically require less lights and no metal parts, reducing the install time down to two to three days.
The Specialists hired five more employees for the fleet division. “We’ve had such a hard time finding retail employees, but as soon as we put out an ad for people who want to build police cars, I’ve been getting five calls a day. It’s insane. That’s how it used to be for car audio,” Riker said.
Only one of the four stores is currently upfitting fleets. They built a temporary space in a metal building next door and the overflow goes into the retail store, which is now also installing amber lights for construction companies and undercover police cars.
Riker said, “It’s a huge business. It’s becoming more profitable than car audio with almost zero advertising and no showroom. It takes a lot of patience and you need to have a lot of capital to get started as initial vendor credit limits are low, so large orders will need to be paid up front. Most vendors work on 30 day terms.”
For example, a basic full patrol build is about $20k and can go as high as $40k for K9 or complex builds. The Specialists’ first large order was for 66 vehicles, but the shop believed the investment would pay off and it has. Now construction companies are coming into the shop for lights and other law enforcement agencies are coming in from hundreds of miles away.
The division also helps keep some of the retail installers busy when work on that side is slow.
“I’ve heard a lot of dealers complain about staying away from emergency lighting. They don’t want to deal with it because they had a bad experience with the departments not paying on time. For us, it’s the total opposite,” said Riker, noting all the municipalities they work with have paid within the 30 day window.
That said, “It’s not for everyone. In a lot of areas you have these big nationwide builders and you can’t compete on price, but you may be able to win them with your service. But in Tucson, there’s only two or three upfitters and they are only regional.” How much capital do you need to get started? Depending on the size of the departments you are dealing with it could be close to half a million dollars, added Riker.
