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 rusty Land Cruisers in the early 1980's. Both had been bit by the Cruiser bug and finding parts before the days of the internet was often a daunting task. They quickly realized 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 location with more room. In 1984 they landed in a 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.

As business expanded they hired on several new employees, Darrell N., Anitol O., and Dave J. (DJ) to name a few. They had 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 Cruiser Engineering 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 into the shop 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 from Mark and Anitol 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 left & 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 have continued to grow each year.

Not long after Anitol and Darrell left Cruiser Engineering, DJ also left and took a job at Advance 4WD with Randy R. DJ would spend 3 or so years there before starting "DJ's Traction Systems" in the Murray area (50th South & 3rd West), 3 years later he would move just several blocks south of Cruiser Outfitters. The building DJ moved into was actually supposed to be another Cruiser shop Desert Highland Land Cruisers owned by local Cruiserheads Tres S. & Andy W. (Andy later worked for Cruiser Outfitters, than All Pro in California, now Marlin Crawler). Their partnership failed before they ever opened the door and Tres instead worked for DJ for over 2 years. Tres S. later started a Cruiser shop called TLCAS with the Gee family in ~99'. The TLCAS Cruiser business ran out of a Midvale car dealership (~80th South & State Street) until late 2006 when they closed the doors on their Land Cruiser parts sales and car dealership. Tres left TLCAS in early 2001 and shortly thereafter started Outback Cruisers located in Coalville. Outback Cruisers ran from early/mid 2001 (He came to the WC BBQ as a company in mid 2002) - 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 its doors to walk in business in 2003 and continues to do internet only sales until this day.

More to come...

 See something factually inaccurate? Missing? Know another piece of the story? Let me know. I've done my best to get a hold of all of the players in the scene but there a few I would love to talk to. If you know how to get a hold of any of the old Cruiserheads, let me know!