BW Online | July 10, 2000 | Creating the Mother of SUVs

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JULY 10, 2000

ENTREPRENEUR PROFILES

Creating the Mother of SUVs
Gut one Suburban, install a 500-horsepower engine, Nannycams, and humidors—and ask a cool $165,000

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If the ever-growing army of road-hogging sport-utes is spoiling your commute, fasten your seat belts. In a small garage in leafy Tuckahoe, N.Y., the technicians of AI Design are building something right out of your worst nightmare.

Beginning with the frame of a humble Chevrolet Suburban, the AI crew adds a supercharged 500-horsepower engine, race-quality spark plugs, and Ferrari brakes. Inside, a custom-stitched leather console holds a coast-to-coast navigation system, a "concert-hall-quality" sound system, and a "multimedia center" that includes modem ports and video screens mounted on the backs of the headrests. Once complete, the vehicle zooms from zero to 60 in about seven seconds and handles like a comfy BMW sedan. And all for just $165,000.

Dubbed the "OnShore," the vehicle is a licensing deal between AI Design and Cigarette Racing Team, the Aventura (Fla.)-based manufacturer of the luxury speedboats popularized on the 1980s cop show Miami Vice. Extravagant? You bet. But Matthew Figliola, AI's sole owner and the OnShore's designer, insists the market is there. "Most luxury cars have to be coddled," he says. "This one can be used everyday. There's nothing like it."

Figliola likes to think of himself as a kind of Picasso of the custom-car industry: a creative genius fearlessly pushing his craft to new heights. The ponytailed 33-year-old, who has tinkered with machines since he could walk, started the company in 1991 to provide high-end car audio systems. But mere autos soon proved too small a canvas, so in 1996 he shifted to the SUV market. It turned out to be a smart move. Sales of SUVs have tripled over the past decade, according to J.D. Power & Associates, and now account for one out of every five vehicles sold in the U.S. What's more, while many SUV owners opt to customize their behemoths, only about a dozen shops in the U.S. offer sophisticated modifications like Figliola.

AI Design does about 250 renovations a year, ranging from $5,000 to $100,000. "Nanny-cam" video systems are popular; so are mobile office conversions, cigar humidors, backup cameras, and superchargers. With clients like King Hassan II of Morocco and Toronto Raptors' Charles Oakley--for whom $2 gas isn't an issue--'99 sales for the six-person shop climbed to $1.5 million.

But most of Figliola's customers are folks like Andrew Kissel. The Manhattan real estate developer recently spent $60,000 on a top-of-the-line Mercedes E320 4matic station wagon. But he wanted more: a digital videodisc player for the kids; a six-disc CD-changer, and a computer-navigation system for himself. AI Design gutted the entire car. Two weeks and $25,000 later, Kissel picked up his baby. "I've tried other companies, but AI surpasses them all," he says. "There's them, and then there's everyone else."

As far as Figliola is concerned, that's a message the whole world could hear soon. He's expecting the Cigarette deal to catapult AI Design to another level. OnShore sales, he says, will push revenues to $3 million this year--without taking on a dime of debt. The company has been financed entirely on its own sales. "We are extremely efficient," Figliola says. Eventually, he hopes to have a name as big as Cigarette, one that can be added to vehicles to increase their value. "We want to be leaders of style for the automobile industry," he says. Which means that the morning commute could get a lot worse.