The players... their shops... and their roles...

The story starts as local Cruiserheads Mark W. and Dave M. get together with the intention of parting out a couple Landcruisers in the early 80's. They quickly realize the potential market and soon open their first shop in a storage unit on 33rd South, ~ 3rd East (the Davis Center) in Salt Lake City. Cruiser Engineering was born. 

As their business grew and customers slowly found their way to the start-up shop, it was time to find a bigger shop, with more room. In 1984 they landed shop off of  27th South at 369 East, just a few blocks north of their earlier arrangement. They moved once again to their final location on 4th west in SLC sometime in the early 90's where they can still be found today. 

As business expanded they hired on several new employees, Darrell N., Anitol O., and Dave J. (DJ) to name a few. They has all come to work at Cruiser Engineering through the tight knit society that Cruisers always seem to induce. They were young, loved wrenching on Cruisers, what a better gig. 

In ~1992 Mark and Dave went their separate ways. Dave stuck with the business and Mark  started a fabrication shop (Innovative Fabrication with partner ??) just a few blocks south near Franklin Covey Stadium. Before long, past Cruiser Engineering employee Anitol moved shops and the two formed a new Cruiser specialty shop. The official name of their business is unknown, I've been told it was either "Custom Cruisers" or possible "Offroad Engineering," a shop I will discuss later on. 

Several months later, Darrell started working across the drive in a rundown building. Mark partnered up with Darrell and Cruiser Outfitters had its humble beginnings, taking the unwanted jobs from the shops across the street. 

In ~1995 Anitol went & started Offroad Engineering with Ash, Ashley? up in North Salt Lake, they closed their doors the last time in 2005. 

Mark and Darrell ran the place together, did some of the first cut & turns, re-skins, some truly cool stuff back in the day. Mark lost his spark for Cruisers, started an "art business" and Innovative Fabrication (general fabrication shop) and Darrell took over the companies debt in exchange for the company (This was in 95' - 96'ish). Darrell ran it for the next ~7 years until he sold it in the end of 2001 to me (Kurt Williams). As of 1/1/02 I was officially doing the Cruiser Outfitters thing and we continue to grow each year.

Not long after Anitol and Darrell left Cruiser Engineering, DJ took a job at Advance 4WD with Randy R. DJ would spent 3 or so years there before starting "DJ's Traction Systems" just several blocks south of Cruiser Outfitters. The building DJ moved into, was actually supposed to be another Cruiser shop (name unknown) owned by local Cruiserheads Tres S. & Andy W. (Andy later worked for Cruiser Outfitters, than All Pro in California, now Marlin Crawler). Their partnership apparently failed before they ever opened the door and Tres later started a Cruiser shop called TLCAS with the Gee? family in ~99'. The TLCAS Cruiser business ran out of a Midvale car dealership until late 2006. Tres left TLCAS in early 2001 and shortly thereafter started Outback Cruisers located in Coalville. Outback ran from early/mid 01 (He came to the WC BBQ as a company??) - mid 2002 when he left his shop in Coalville (the old Crandall Ford building) and was working out of his house/internet for a few months. Outback Cruisers officially closed sometime in 2003.

More to come...

 See something factually inaccurate? Missing? Know another piece of the story? Let me know.