Local Shop Can Make Automotive Dreams Come True

Most years the holiday season would mean plenty of automatic starters to install for the guys at . This year, with temperatures in the 40's and 50's, the Route 9 business has focused more on installing stereos for their customers than helping them avoid getting into cold cars. 

Nic Trumper, one of the owners of the shop, said in the two years they have been open they have made a name for themselves by doing whatever their customers ask. With both of them having a lot of experience in the business, he said they wanted to have their own place to do things their way.

In addition to the automatic starters and stereos, Street Dreams also does things like window tinting, and custom rims. "Anything to do with cars," Trumper said. 

Working with his longtime friend Drew Farrow, the two have worked hard to make Street Dreams a success, even if that means working late nights to give their customers the best product possible. While they have been busy, they admit opening and operating a business during a tough economic time has been a challenge. "With the way the economy has been, it has been hit or miss," Trumper said. 

Farrow has experience working at some of the bigger box stores, but said in a smaller location he can offer better services. "We're a specialty shop," he said. "Most of the big box stores don't even do specialty things anymore. If you're going to have something installed in your car your salesman needs to be an installer."

They both said that another advantage is that they can get their equipment and the items needed for cheaper than some of the bigger stores. "Because we are smaller, we don't have a big overhead," Trumper said. 

In two years they have worked on a wide range of cars from high-end luxury cars to much more modest sedans and coupes. Farrow said they chose the Howell location to fill what they believed was a hole in the service of the area.

Even with the challenges, both owners agree that it has been worth it to serve their customers. "It's our baby, we don't want it to fail," Farrow said. Trumper added, "I don't even know how we've stayed in as long as we have, but we don't want it to fail."

Not only has the economy hurt their business but Trumper said the internet impacted their customers as well. "In the 90's this market was huge," he said. "What killed it is the internet. It shut down a lot of retail." Farrow said they have been able to find items cheaper on the internet than they can from some of their suppliers.  

Last year, most of their business came from the remote starters, while this year they said it has been almost everything except them. Farrow said they even sold a few rims recently when those would normally be the last things on customers minds.

And while auto starters are a popular item, Farrow said the custom stereos are his passion. "That's what started it," he said. "When I do a remote starter it's okay I did a remote starter. When I do a stereo system you get the satisfaction that I did that when you listen to it."

Over the time of his career, Farrow said he has seen a lot of technology come and go making every job a little different. "It changes every day," he said. "Electronics is the only business there is where everything gets cheaper every year. It's a great industry for that, but our business, a lot of the luxuries and commodities that we sell come in the cars already. So it really comes down to building a name for ourselves and having a business that people trust."

Going from 8 tracks, to tape decks, to CD players, Farrow said the big thing now is making sure cars have the latest MP3 technology. And of course that technology is not complete without the biggest and best speakers and audio equipment to make the best sound possible. And since the cars are not built for this kind of technology, that can often mean a lot of installation work. "A lot of people if they saw their car while we were working on it, they'd probably have a heart attack," Farrow said. 

Even on the most expensive cars, Farrow said he is not afraid of making mistakes because he has been doing this job for so long. 

Even with all the things going against them, the two owners said they have people who they know will keep coming back for all their custom needs. "All these shops you know you're going to have guys who come in and hang around and do stuff to their car," Farrow said. 

Whether it is a big job or a smaller one, Farrow said they try to treat everyone the same. "We're here trying to do business the old fashioned way. I'm not trying to take everybody's money that walks through the door," he said. "I tell people all the time, I would love to take your money, but if you don't need what I'm trying to sell I'm not going to over sell you."

Trumper said right now their main goal is to get their name and grow the business. "We are just trying to make people know that we're here," he said. Anyone who came here, I've never seen someone who hasn't come back."

Farrow said he would like to see the company build over time, but is happy where it is now. "I think people have a huge misconception about what's involved with opening your own store," he said with both adding that that definitely applied to them. "I don't think anyone really anticipates what it costs to run a business the first few years."

Both owners said if they knew then what they knew now, they might not have opened the store in the first place. "It's been stressful Trumper said. "You have to really be in this heart and soul to be where we're at," Farrow added. "We love what we do at the end of the day."

For more information on Street Dreams you can visit their store at 2775 Route 9 North just before the Ivy League or call them at 732-961-7719.