Greg and Carrie met there as employees in the early 1980s. That’s when Dale Noland, Carrie’s grandfather, started selling them.Ī decade later, her father, Jim Noland, started Noland Car Company in Edgewater, a company that supplied Pargo brand carts to Walt Disney World and other resorts nationally and internationally. It used to be seasonal, so in April things would slow down pretty much through September, but now we’re busy year-round.”įor the Welsh family, the golf cart connection goes back to the mid-1960s. “Probably in the last five years our business is up 30 percent,” he said. READ: Daytona Beach Latitude Margaritaville grows at red-hot pace The brand-new 2019 model lists for $15,995 and it’s a popular choice for customers that have kept Gulf Atlantic’s business trending upward in recent years, Welsh said.Ī lot of potential buyers are coming from new developments that have contributed to a recent home-building boom in Volusia County, especially the 3,400-home Jimmy Buffett-themed Latitude Margaritaville 55-and-older community in Daytona Beach, Welsh said. It’s also equipped with everything required for a Vehicle Identification Number from the state Department of Motor Vehicles: a windshield that meets Florida Department of Transportation standards, wipers, mirrors, a lighted license plate frame and a slow-moving vehicle emblem for the back. “It comes with a heavier suspension, kind of like a Jeep, higher off the ground.” “You can take it on any road with a posted speed limit of 35 mph or less,” Welsh said. He points to a Club Car Onward, a six-seat model that’s street legal. “A cart is something you pull,” said Greg Welsh, 60, who owns the business with his wife. The family-owned business is now in its fourth generation, a span long enough to witness an industry transformation. NEW SMYRNA BEACH - They used to call them golf carts, but that description doesn’t cover the array of stylish extras and creature comforts available on the dozens of gleaming models aligned in neat rows on the grassy lot at Gulf Atlantic Vehicles.Ī fixture in the area since 1991, Gulf Atlantic specializes in golf cars, an evolution of the battery-powered carts once relegated to transporting weekend foursomes from tee to green.
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