By Dan Spalding
News Now Warsaw
WARSAW — Elliott’s Custom Trailers and Carts in Warsaw is celebrating its 20th anniversary this week.
For Cindy Elliott, who founded the business 20 years ago, it’s been an emotional roller coaster as she reflects on the struggles and successes over the course of the company’s history.
“It is emotional? Heck yes,” she said while sitting in her office on Corridor Drive Thursday afternoon.
Earlier this week, the business celebrated the anniversary with the Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce and will have another event on Saturday at their store on Corridor Drive in Warsaw.
Elliott was the wife of Tony Elliott, the local racing legend who was one of four killed in a plane crash in 2015.
Tony had been selling cars in Kokomo when Cindy started selling golf carts in Warsaw. Eventually, Tony joined her in the golf car business and they then expanded to include trailers for the racing industry.
Cindy describes Tony as a great salesman for the company who played a key role as the company expanded into the racing industry.
Tony’s death, followed by the pandemic, created significant ups and downs for the company.
“Tony had died a few years prior to that and I thought that was the hardest thing, and then the pandemic hits and I thought, “Is this what’s going to take me down because nobody was doing anything,” she said.
And then the golf cart sales business took off as small town America realized the little vehicles were an easy substitute for cars when getting around town.
“It really snowballed at the end of the pandemic,” she said. “Everybody was going stir crazy.”
These days, in rural communities like Mentone and Silver Lake, gas and electric-powered carts are a common site during the summer months.
According to Global Market Insights, the golf cart industry exceeded $1.5 billion for the first time in 2022 and is expected to double to $3 billion within the next decade, according to a story by houstonlanding.org.
“Golf carts are so popular now and we started when nobody wanted to sell golf carts and we were the only ones around forever,” she said, reflecting back on the company’s early days.
Meanwhile the trailer business has established itself in NASCAR, IMS and smaller racing communities.
She credits Tony’s reputation and involvement in helping that aspect of the business, but adds that her sales and service staff have also played an important role.
The Elliott name is clearly well established 120 miles to the south where the company has a strong presence at the Indy 500.
Elliott’s provided carts to four race teams this year as well as one for Indianapolis Motor Speedway President Doug Boles, that was decked out in a color scheme matching this year’s pace car.
Succeeding in the race industry has been challenging just based on gender, which remains a prevalent issue across many business sectors.
‘It can be tough out there, you know, because they assume something that really isn’t true,” she said. “I feel like a woman in that industry, or any male-dominated industry, you gotta work twice as hard,” she said.
Elliott’s will celebrate the two-decade anniversary from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday with food and sales.
