Nivel’s latest offering will make golf car owners happy and make golf car dealers’ lives easier.
An aftermarket golf car parts leader is getting ready to debut a body kit that will turn heads and revolutionize the industry.
In fall 2020, Nivel Specialty Vehicles is debuting Madjax Storm, a body kit for the E-Z-GO TXT golf car. It features a stylish, automotive design and modular construction that should make life easier for both golf car owners and dealers. The Madjax Storm Light Kit will be the first in the golf car industry to offer reverse lights.
The move comes alongside a new brand identity for Madjax, Nivel’s flagship brand. Nivel showed off concepts and teased the changes at the PGA Merchandise Show early in the year in Orlando.
Matt Fields, Senior Product Manager for Nivel Specialty Vehicles, laid out several high-level objectives for what Nivel wants to achieve with Storm. First, they want to create aftermarket body kits that look and feel more automotive. Increasingly, customers demand golf cars that look like on-road vehicles with lighting and styling like the cars and trucks they drive.
“From a stylish standpoint, that’s the look we’re going for,” Fields said. Lighting including accent lights, body panels and grill designs are among the areas they worked on during the design process.
Then there’s convenience for both dealer and owner. “From a dealer-facing standpoint, we wanted to make something that’s easy,” Fields said. Modular design means positives such as less packaging, easier replacement and simpler inventory. It also means greater customization and easier repairs for the customer. With body pieces broken up into individual panels, it’s possible to do things like painting individual pieces when putting together something custom. Likewise, repair work will be a lot simpler.
“From a service and repair standpoint, now that the body is replaceable by panel, rather than having to replace the entire body if you get some damage to your driver side fender…they can get just the one part and swap out on that side,” Fields said.
Fields, who came to golf cars from the powersports industry, believes these stylish and practical improvements are going to become much more popular.
“It’s not just this industry, but adjacent industries as well,” he said. “We’re seeing a lot of influence and inspiration being brought across product categories.”
That influence and inspiration is being driven by customers with increasingly specific wants. Namely, they want the look and feel of their car or truck in the other vehicles they own.
“They want other vehicles that resemble those vehicles – the look and the technology,” Fields said. The UTV industry and others are moving in this direction as well, he said. “That’s going to be critical to keep the customer interested in the product,” he said.
As in so many industries, it’s been a challenging few months in the golf car industry. But he’s confident they’ll be ready to go for that fall 2020 launch.
“Since the PGA show we definitely have had some logistical setbacks,” he said first overseas suppliers slowed, then came US shutdowns and slowdowns. But they soon got back to shipping and doing the work they needed to do to get the product out to dealers and customers. Dealers and customers, Fields said, who will be interested to see what they’ve got.
“Since our reveal of our prototype at the PGA Show we’ve had a lot of interest,” he said. “We’re excited to get into production.”
