Midlands Profiles
Frank’s Car Wash
The only thing that beats the feeling of stepping into a new car is stepping into a clean one. Although the industry has undergone dramatic changes since Frank Hutchins started washing cars with Constan back in 1958, Frank's Car Wash remains committed to offering a quality product, top notch customer service, at a reasonable price.
It's a great experience to go to Frank's. Much of the car wash industry has left the full service model far behind, but not Frank's. From the time you arrive until the moment you drive off in your clean car, everything is perfectly executed. There's always a manager on staff in a white shirt. The facilities are impeccably clean. The people wiping your car are sharplydressed and polite.
"If you want the best finished product in this industry, you need a full, 100 foot tunnel with the car moving along a conveyor, you need multiple pieces of neoprene or cloth equipment, high pressure rinses, state-of-the-art drying agents and waxes, as well as adequate blowers," says Mike Hutchins, its current President. "It also helps in this day and ageto go "green" by recycling all your water except for the final rinse."
"A great part of having a family business
like ours is how deeply everyone
is committed to the long-term
success of the company."
With 158 years cumulative experience, the Hutchins family knows a thing or two about how to clean cars.
After working in the early part of his career for a regional car wash company, Constan, in 1973, Frank Hutchins decided to go out on his own with his son, Mike, to build a car wash business here in the Midlands. In 1993, Mike bought the three existing stores and over the next 15 years, continued to build locations. He brought
in a good friend of the family, Harry Jones, as a partner in two locations, Forest Drive and Sumter. Harry had also spent his early car wash years as a Constan general manager in North Carolina. Today, Frank's Car Wash is the largest chain of car washes in South Carolina with 10 locations including two additional ones in the planning stages.
Frank's constantly upgrades its equipment to include the latest, state-of the art technology. Much of that equipment is supplied by Frank Hutchins' other business, called Frank's Car Wash Equipment and Supply, a company that supplies equipment and chemicals to car washes all along the Eastern Seaboard. In total, Frank Hutchins has built over 75 car wash facilities and recently completed the new onsite car wash facility at the BMW plant in Spartanburg.
Says Frank: "Each of the brand new BMW's that are sent out to market is washed by the exact same equipment as we have in each of our locations."
The company is a family business - always has been and it looks as though it always will be. Mike's two sons Shawn and Phillip have been on the team for ten plus years."Everybody who has ever worked in a family business knows how tough it can be, but that is what we are most proud of here," says Shawn Hutchins. "We work together well. A great part of having a family business like ours is how deeply everyone is committed to the long-term success of the company.
Above Photo: Shawn Hutchins, Harry Jones, Mike Hutchins, Frank Hutchins, Phillip Hutchins
©Photo by Molly Harrell
