Every successful business has a good origin story about how it all began, and Ultimate Detailing & Window Tinting in Kewanee is no exception.
Owner and operator Johnnie Elias was just 12-years-old when he began detailing his dad’s cars. Even then, he knew it was something he enjoyed doing. But it would be decades later before a hobby turned into a full-blown business.
His first paying customer was in 1996. He had been detailing on the side in his garage for friends and family, but once his son started playing sports, traveling ball took up much of his free time forcing him to focus his attention on keeping his own cars looking good.
He worked for Timberlyn at the time. For close to 20 years, Elias worked as a technician, before being promoted to project manager. In 2017, his son was just a year away from graduating high school when he asked his dad to help him make some extra money by detailing cars as a “side hustle.” Elias agreed to help.
“I posted a couple posts and that was it,” he said. “After that, we worked in the garage every night and every weekend.”
It was around that time, Elias said he decided that detailing automobiles might just be a full-time operation.
In May of 2019, he moved his small business into a building on Main Street. He left his full-time job with the commercial lighting company in October of that year.
“We didn’t really have a name for it,” he said of his Main Street business, but customers almost inevitably requested the ultimate package and the name Ultimate Detail just stuck.
Elias admits that detailing automobiles requires a certain eye for detail.
“I think a lot of people underestimate what the difference is between a detailing and a car wash,” he said. “And a lot of people don’t understand what goes into detailing.”
Elias said they have tools that get into “every nook and cranny” in the interior, and have special tools to remove stubborn pet hairs.
“We provide the deepest clean you can get without replacing your carpet,” he said.
Done right, Elias said, detailing can transform even a brand new car.
It’s not just detailing that his business provides. They have added services over the years. They also offer paint restoration and corrections, which can make a vehicle’s paint look like new.
“We start with a really clean, fresh base,” he said.
Ceramic coatings and paint corrections are easily their most popular services, and Elias said he spends a lot of time in the back bay, polishing cars.
“It’s my favorite thing to do. It gives you satisfaction to see paint imperfections disappear,” he said, adding that the task is also a stress reliever for him.
The service can take paint finishes with swirl marks and make them look brand new in most cases, he said.
In 2020, his business was growing and so when Motor City moved their service department to their dealership on Railroad Avenue, Elias was offered the Burlington Avenue building. That move, from Main Street to Burlington Avenue, gave the business an extra 4300 square feet of space. Elias now has seven bays to use to provide his services.
The very next year, Ultimate Detailing added window tinting to their menu. Elias said it’s been a huge addition. But the addition of services requires more employees. He currently employs five full-time and two part-time employees.
In 2021, his son Bryce went into law enforcement. His son is a police officer and he has three nephews that work in law enforcement as well. Because of that connection, and his roots in the community, Elias donates services to both the Kewanee Police and Fire departments, as well as the Henry County Sheriff’s Office.
“It’s coming from the last several years as law enforcement not getting a break,” he said of his generous donation to the area first responders. “They could use a break.”
And Elias provides them one. The HCSO cars get a free detail once a year, and the KPD brings him two squad cars a month for a wash and detail.
For the KFD, Elias provides paint correction, polishing and ceramic coating at cost for their ambulances, which the Kewanee fire fighters appreciate, he said.
For the Hog Days parade, Elias makes sure that the city vehicles look their best, but his community support doesn’t end there. He also sponsors travel ball teams and often donates items for charity raffles.
Business is booming, he admits. He is booked weeks out and he credits his great team of employees for keeping things humming.
He believes that in order for small businesses to thrive, they need to grow and provide quality products and services.
“We continue to add services. You can’t get complacent,” said Elias. If you don’t continue to give the public what they want, you’ll miss out.”
Elias may have never planned to have a second career doing something that he’s been good at since he was a child, but he does enjoy his work, adding that there is one thing he would have changed.
“The only regret I have is that I didn’t do it earlier,” he said.
