DK Interviews Show Chrome

The DK crew recently took a trip out Rice Lake, WI to visit the headquarters of Show Chrome and Ultragard. For over 40 years, Show Chrome has been a top producer of aftermarket motorcycle accessories, primarily for Gold Wings and other touring motorcycles. At Dennis Kirk, Show Chrome is one of our best sellers and it was great to catch up in person with the good people over there. Ultragard, their sister brand, is a top producer of motorcycle covers.

During our time there, we caught up with Sales Manager Brandon Westphal and owners Ricky and Harry Goldstein as well as George Levante who heads up R&D. In the interview below, you’ll hear them discuss the rich history of the company and how they go about developing their products.

Transcript Below:

Brandon: Hey guys, Brandon here with Show Chrome. Today, we get to hang out with the Dennis Kirk team.

Show Chrome is a company that started 40 years ago here in Rice Lake Wisconsin. We started out by developing and designing parts that made your bike safer, more fun, as well as more enjoyable to ride. Show Chrome came about because of the lack of motorcycle accessories back 40 years ago for a lot of the metric and the American bikes, again. And we noticed that there was a yearning from consumers looking for products that we could design that would make their rides more enjoyable.

I started with Show Chrome 21 years ago, back in 2001 and I was working at a parts store right here in Rice Lake. For me, it was an opportunity to do some B2B business. That is what show Chrome is made for, is B2B business and selling to dealers like Dennis Kirk. When the opportunity was arising, I absolutely jumped on it, and it’s led me here 21 years today.

George: My name is George Levante. I’m a head of R&D here. I’m also kind of the head of the IT here as well. There’s a lot, there’s actually a lot of legal that goes into R&D, obviously with lighting products and safety products and stuff like that. Just making sure we’re not crossing any lines or making any products that are going to get people in trouble or you know cause accidents out on the road because we don’t want to do that. But there’s a lot of nuances to it. I pretty much review every drawing that comes out of R&D, make sure we’ve checked everything we can possibly check. You know, as much as, you know, they call me the guy that breaks everything because any 3D print we have or any prototype we have, I try to break it because if I can break it, that means the consumer can break it and we need to re-look at what we’re doing.

Ricky: I’m Ricky, co-owner of Show Chrome and Ultragard.

Harry: And I’m Harry, co-owner of Show Chrome and Ultragard. 100% of our products are designed and engineered here in the U.S all of our products are assembled here in the U.S. We take some parts in from overseas if we can’t get them locally, but we’ve got a huge number of Midwestern stampers, forgers, injection molders that are supporting us all the time throughout Wisconsin, Illinois, you know, Missouri, Iowa, and we wouldn’t be able to do it without them as well.

Brandon: Growing up in the Rice Lake community and having Show Chrome be part of the Rice Lake community truly allowed us to to gather a tremendous amount of talent that would bring Show Chrome to where we are today. Knowing that there was so many riders, so many enthusiasts. And in Wisconsin, being a state that there’s so much history when it comes to the motorcycle industry.

Participating in the power sports with the family, again, is about family time, meeting up with friends, both new and old some of my best friends have been someone that I bumped into on a trail on a ride that I’ve been able to connect with and continue to grow friendships as we continue to mature in the Powersports industry.

To view everything that Show Chrome has to offer, be sure to visit DennisKirk.com.