Like so many business owners, Bob Alford (above, center) faced some tough choices as the economy slid downward.

“I did have to drop some labor because the amount of work slowed down so I didn’t have enough work,” the owner of Pro Street Customs in Orlando, Florida, said. “At one point [I] had five full-time employees, plus myself, and a couple of part-time guys, but when the economy went into the tank, I had to lay off three guys because I didn’t have enough work to keep them busy.”

Alford also found other places to reduce his expenses and keep his shop going.

“My landlord adjusted my rent for a while just so that I could keep my doors open,” he said. “I didn’t have to close my doors because I did work with my landlord. He was really accommodating for me, so I just kept going and made it through the slow time.”

Though his workload had diminished, Alford was able to bring in enough work to get him, and the employees he had remaining, through the rough times.

“I had five or six jobs going that carried me through that slow time, and recently things have started to pick back up again,” he said. “When the economy took a dump, my business dropped way off as well, but I did have enough work and customers that could continue to work on their cars to keep me going.”

Decades in the Making

The business Alford has worked so hard to keep going is the result of a lifelong love affair with cars. He moved to Southern California when he was a small child and soon became enthralled with his neighbor’s 1929 Model A roadster, an award-winning vehicle that was featured on the covers of enthusiast magazines. 

“When I was eight years old, they would put a pile of rags on my chest and put me on a creeper and roll me under the car and tell me not to come out until it was clean,” he said. “I did all the cleanup on the bottom side of that car and that car won numerous shows. I guess that’s when I fell in love with hot rods [was] at that young age.”

Alford got his first job at a body shop when he was 14. After graduating from high school, he moved to Alabama and opened a shop. He returned to California several years later and took on jobs in different industries, but never stopped working on cars.

“I always had a small shop in my backyard or something like that keeping small jobs going, doing stuff on the side,” he said.

Alford moved his family to Orlando, Florida, 20 years ago and worked at a couple of different collision shops and then at a shop that fabricated race cars. During that time, he also painted race cars in a paint booth he rented from a body shop. When he left the race shop, the body shop owner offered him space to do custom work.

“The owner of the body shop had a section of the shop that he wasn’t using so he rented it to me,” he said. “I set up a shop inside of [the] body shop where I had access to a couple of thousand square feet and access to a paint booth. I was there for eight years.”

Though Alford’s business was housed inside another shop in Winter Park, Florida, it was pretty well separated from the body shop. He had his own entrance with street exposure and his own office. He shared the paint booth with the body shop and, sometimes, walk-in business.

“[We] had that agreement whereby if anybody came looking for insurance work or just regular dent repair and regular paint jobs, I’d send them to him because I wasn’t interested in doing just normal off-the-street body shop work, and when people came looking for something special, if they happened to walk into his office first, then he would send them to me,” Alford said.

The Right Location

Alford developed a reputation for high-end, show-quality builds, eventually bringing in so many jobs that it overwhelmed the 5,000-square-foot space he was renting from the body shop.

“I outgrew where I was,” he said. “I was getting so busy that I didn’t have enough room where I was to build the number of cars that we had to build. In that building I [only] had about 5,000 square feet and there wasn’t enough room there for me.”

Alford was driving near his home in Orlando when he saw the future home for Pro Street Customs, a brand-new 11,000-square-foot building in an industrial park. He contacted the landlord and secured a 10-year lease with a 10-year option, and the option to buy.

The building has a paint booth and 2,000-square-foot assembly room that Alford built.

“I’m completely set up and I don’t ever want to move again,” he said of the building that also offers him exposure on a major intersection.

Alford is nearing the end of his first 10-year lease and is eager to sign on for 10 more years, but has no plans to purchase the building.

“Right now, just because of the way the economy is, I can actually rent [the building] cheaper than I can buy it,” he said. “The landlord agreed that if I wanted to buy it, then I have first option to refuse it if he should decide to sell it. Nobody’s buying anything right now and he knows how much money he has to have to sell it and, like I said, right now I can rent it cheaper than I can buy it so I’ll just stay with my lease.”

Sticking with a great building owned by a flexible landlord has helped Alford’s business stay afloat during the rockiest times and enjoy a recent resurgence as customers have decided the time is right to build their dream cars.

“There are small shops around that try to do the custom side of it [and are] going out of business, but I really think that because my customers are high-end customers, I don’t think they ever ran out of money,” he said. “I think that people just stopped spending money.

“The last couple of customers that have come back, I think they just decided that they were tired of sitting on their money and wanted to spend some of it,” Alford added. “I get the impression that they’re tired of not being able to do what they want to do and they want to enjoy some of it, so they started spending it again, the people that actually have money.”

Show & Shine

Customers are looking for Alford and his team, which includes a laid-off employee he was able to rehire, to build vehicles they can show off at the car shows held in the Orlando area throughout the year.

“Most of the customers I build cars for, this is their dream car, whatever it might be, it’s something that they’ve always wanted or a car that they’ve owned for a long time that they decided they want to make it a real high-end car,” he said. “Depending on the customer and how much money they want to spent, the cost factor is a big part of it, and to do the kind of work that we do is not cheap to do because it takes a long time, it’s labor-intensive.”

Those customers are willing to pay for that labor-intensive work. On each job, Alford takes a deposit to cover time and materials for the start of the job, keeps a daily log of all work performed, submits an invoice and progress photos to the customer, and then takes another payment to cover the next phase of the project.

Alford developed this payment system to ensure he has enough money to keep the project going and so that he won’t get behind himself. While he’s trying to protect himself and his business, Alford also understands he needs the customers to trust him if they’re going to leave a sizable deposit.

“I’ve developed a really good rapport with all of my customers,” he said. “When a potential customer comes in the shop, I always give him references to my other customers.

“They allow me to give a potential customer their phone numbers so the customer can talk to them and they can understand the way that things work and that I can be trusted, and they can see the kind of work we do,” he said.

The true payoff for Alford comes at the end of the job when the customer shows off their new ride.

“I really enjoy it all, but my favorite part is when we finish a job and we take it to a car show and the customer wins awards with it,” he said. “When I see the smile on their face and they’re talking to people and they’re excited about their car, because it’s very personal to them.

“It excites me to see one of my customers standing there talking to people, their jaw gets tired, they talk to so many people about the car, and that’s where I get my enjoyment, seeing them enjoy what I’ve done for them,” Alford added.

Growing & Thriving

When not building show cars, Alford is developing a line of modified 1957 Corvette roadster bodies and parts that he’ll sell online and, possibly, through other dealers.

“It’s an interest that I’ve had for probably 30 years,” he said. “The 1957 Corvette was always my favorite car and I just decided to build one of them. I’m customizing the body and doing a bunch of modifications to it and, once that’s done, I’m going to make molds of everything so that I can reproduce the car.”

Alford envisions selling the bodies and parts under the Pro Street Corvettes name to enthusiasts who want to own a great-looking classic they can also drive.

“If somebody bought an original 1957 Corvette, they would buy it because it’s an investment and they wouldn’t want to take it out and drive it because it’s too valuable,” he said. “I’m building something that they can buy, take out and drive and have fun with and not worry about it being devalued or getting damaged because it can be repaired.”

Alford will balance the man hours required to manufacture the Corvette parts with the time needed to continue to do the quality custom work Pro Street Customs has become known for.

“We’ll produce them right here in my shop because I have the capabilities,” he said. “Once we get it going, I could produce probably six or seven, maybe 10 cars a year right out of my shop.”

This new venture fits well with Alford’s mission to build quality cars and keep Pro Street Customs moving forward.

“My goal is to continue to produce high-end, high-quality cars for customers that can afford it,” he said. “I can’t see retirement in my future yet. I would like to see the business grow but, at the same time, I don’t want it to get too big just because there’s so much involved.”

Alford is satisfied with the pace his shop is currently going at.

“If I’m building five or six cars at a time, that keeps me plenty busy.”

Pro Street Customs Inc.

Owner:  Bob Alford

Address:  7850 N Orange Blossom Trail, Orlando, Florida 32810

Phone:  (407) 291-3331

Websites: www.prostreetcustomsinc.com; www.prostreetcorvettes.com

Services Offered:  Complete custom builds, pro-street, pro-touring, hot rods, frame-off restorations, fabrication, welding, custom exhaust systems, wiring, high-performance installations, custom glass work, custom paint and body work

Current Projects:  1956 Ford Thunderbird, 1957 Can-Am-style Corvette, 1966 Pontiac GTO, 1967 Mustang Eleanor clone,  1968 Camaro RS-SS, 1969 Ford Torino 428 Cobra Jet, 1969 Camaro SS, 1996 Chevy Impala SS

Number of Employees:  4

Years in Business:  16

Tags: Corvettes, Managing Employees, Pricing Work, Restorer Profile, Small Business Owners