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| Alton Company have built custom crew cabs and cab extensions for over thirty years. We use genuine factory sheet metal, hardware and interior trim. Installs rear seats, seat belts and full floor matting. Then its completely painted to match, inside and out, ....for a truck you can be proud of! |
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A History of Alton
In Huron County surrounded by farmland, Automotive Industries in Owendale MI started in the 1950’s by Elmer Wetlaufer, John McKenzie, and Al McKenzie. They began building tractor cabs for Ford and sun visors for Chrysler Motors. Later they built sleeper cabs for medium and heavy-duty trucks and then crew cabs. Al McKenzie moved the business six miles north to Pigeon, Michigan to start Alton Co. in 1969. He began building sleeper cabs and crew cabs (that Automotive Industries had started) located at 120 N. Sturm Rd. From that point they really concentrated on the crew cabs for light, medium, and heavy-duty trucks.
In 1980 Jerry Adams was brought in as Vice President. Alton at that time was building trucks for customers all over the US and Canada. After the word got out about Alton they were building trucks worldwide. Alton was building mainly for GM and Ford but also some Dodges. Also some custom work for Western Hauler, as Jerry puts it, "the cowboy customers”. They liked the medium duty trailer haulers.
In 1985 Jerry Adams took over ownership and introduced the club cab in 24”or 9” cab extensions. It is known now as the extended cab, which every factory now builds. Alton Company has always been one step ahead of the (big three) factories. As soon as the market was established, the factories would start building the extended or crew-cabs - technologies that had been developed by Alton along with some other companies. In 1986 they were building fire truck cab canopies for Peter Pirsch in Chicago. Also in Chicago was Auto Truck supplier of railroad equipment and Alton was building most of their trucks for them. First crew cabs and then putting the rail wheels and associated accessories on so the trucks could ride on the tracks. Those nine employees would build up to three hundred trucks a year including crew cabs, specialty trucks, and cab extensions.
Jerry is most proud of the fact that Alton trucks were shipped all over the world. Alton’s trucks were shipped to South America, Iran, Africa, Kuwait, England, and Australia to name a few. Also that he met so many great people in the industry. Jerry built the Alton Company on a reputation of:
. These three things are still very important to Alton today. Jerry sold the company in 1996 and stayed on for one year to help the new owners. Nick Pavlichek was one of the new owners and two years ago bought out the other two owners. Nick’s philosophy is like that of Jerry’s:
Today the Alton Company is building six-door, medium duty SUV’s (known as XUV) and cab extensions for all truck cabs on light, medium, and heavy duty truck chassis. Alton has for the last few years have had at least two trucks (sometimes as many as five) at the SEMA show in Las Vegas during November. Alton has always listened to what the customer wants and is aware of where the market is going. |
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