Chickamauga’s Outback Fabricators is welding parts for golf carts to prepare hunters to chase after big game.
Owners of the business, welder Matt Glenfield and his mother, sales consultant Gail Glenfield, work together.
“Our products are made for hunters, off-roaders, farmers and campers who need rugged and heavy-duty products they can use, abuse and enjoy,” said Matt Glenfield. “I got my first golf cart when I was 9 years old. … I enjoyed testing a golf cart’s potential and pushing its use as I rode through mud and water; pulled a trailer behind it full of hay, rocks or anything that had to be moved. I soon learned that a golf cart was much more than something to ride around a golf course on.”
While a student at Gordon Lee High School, the now-23-year-old began taking welding classes at Georgia Northwestern Technical College. From that time on, he knew he wanted to be a welder.
“It gave me the training to take my desire to design and fabricate unique and heavy-duty golf cart products that are built with better quality than anything on the market, which is how my mom and I started Outback Fabricators,” he said. “Every golf cart product is totally handcrafted from raw USA steel and built to last, unlike the standard overseas products.”
Glenfield said most of his company’s customers are distant ones, so he ships a lot from FedEx shipping site Copy Cafe in Fort Oglethorpe. However, his larger golf cart sports cages must be put on pallets and delivered to local freight companies to be shipped out.
“I couldn’t think of anything I would want to be doing other than designing and fabricating our products,” he said.
Gail Glenfield said all products are hand-fabricated from scratch and marketed to do-it-yourself guys. Eighty percent of products go out as raw materials. For example, she said the company created a roll cage, roof rack, gear rack and big buck rack for All-Terrain Motorsports. She said all Outback Fabricators products shipped are fully welded.
Some products have 40 different drilling holes, she said, adding that the rear seats created at Outback have 12 different pieces.
“We off-road in our golf carts,” said Gail Glenfield. “We go to Prentice Cooper.”
Working seven days a week next to their home in Chickamauga, the Glenfields added a boxing or shipping room, an office, an extra welding room, a fabricating room and a bathroom this year to the business. Formerly located in downtown Chickamauga, the family decided to move the business to their home because people were taking their golf carts on joy rides, the Glenfields said.
Outback Fabricators can be viewed online at outbackcustomfabricators.com/index2.html.