The Wheel Thing: Businessman rolls along through tough times

By Ed Runyan

Businessman rolls along through tough times

People passing by the store are amazed by Mease’s tricked-out Oldsmobile Cutlass.

WARREN — The small-business owner needs to be creative to sell his products, and that’s true for Greg Mease of Mease’s Custom Wheels and Tires on Youngstown-Warren Road.

Mease says the local custom-car market he serves has been hurt by the national recession, but there are still people here with the cash and desire to customize their car like the rapper Xzibit and the boys on the MTV show “Pimp My Ride.”

But to keep interest high in tricked-out rims, Mease recently purchased something so outrageous to display in front of the store that even he’s been impressed with the reaction.

“If I had a nickel for everyone who’s taken a picture of it, I’d probably have a thousand dollars,” Mease said recently of the four 50-inch steel Player Wire Wheel rims he installed on an old Oldsmobile Cutlass.

“It’s all over the Internet. It’s everywhere,” Mease said of pictures of the car.

Mease explains that the rims are too big to be street legal, and nobody makes tires to fit them, so he made his own by cutting two 24-inch tires apart and sewing them together.

The Cutlass has no motor, transmission or seats.

“If I wanted to make the car move, I could,” Mease said, but for all intents and purposes, the car is an advertisement.

“You know the billboards they put up? That’s basically what this is with a life-sized car,” Mease said, adding that these rims are most likely the largest ones ever made.

As for using such rims on an actual car, Mease said: “If you had enough money, anything’s possible.”

Mease, on the other hand, says he has only about $2,200 invested in the car/billboard.

Brian Starr, a salesman at Player Wire Wheel, which is part of B&R Wholesale Tire on Meridian Road in Youngstown, said Player Wire Wheel has sold the 50-inch rims to customers all over the United States, but in most cases buyers have wanted only one and only wanted to display it inside the store without a tire on it.

Player Wire Wheel bought 200 of the rims from China and resold them for $500 apiece.

Mease is the only customer Starr is aware of who mounted four of them on a car, put tires on and displayed them outside. Mease is the only area business with the rims, Starr added.

In the real-life custom-car market, the biggest rims are 28 inches, Starr said.

Mease said a set of four 26-inch rims with tires sell at his store for $3,000 and up. Smaller rims with tires cost $900 and up.

The West Coast is the leader in custom rims, Mease said, but he tries to keep local custom-rim buyers up to date by stocking the latest merchandise.

Historically, custom rims have been all chrome, but the most recent West Coast trend is for the rims to be accented with paint, and Mease has several styles in his showroom.

His store also sells remote starters, window tinting, alarms and iPod-ready TVs and stereos.

The “Pimp My Ride” franchise has given inspiration to car lovers all over the world, Mease said.

He’s happy if his Cutlass has done that for the Warren area.

“They’re just amazed by it,” Mease said of the Cutlass.

runyan@vindy.com