Ft. Wayne firm gives disabled drivers more options

by Melissa Reurink on February 28th, 2010



By KEVIN LEININGER Associated Press



Tom Kelley never thought he would lose his Saturn dealership, any more than Steve Kitchin expected to be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.



But now, the two Fort Wayne men have found a mutually beneficial enterprise that could help boost the economy by liberating thousands of disabled Americans from the limitations of their bodies.



It’s bad enough that getting hurt takes your manhood away. Driving a minivan made it even worse. I’m not a soccer mom, said Kitchin, 44, who broke his neck in an automobile accident 10 years ago and has been a quadriplegic ever since. He has enough use of his arms and hands to drive a modified van that recently broke down for good.



That got the former advertising executive thinking about the kind of vehicle he would like to drive next, which in turn led to the discovery that nobody was making four-wheel-drive vehicles that could be operated by severely disabled drivers.



Now Kitchin and some friends have created a company, GoShichi, to fill the void with a big assist from a man whose auto empire was hit hard by General Motors’ recent elimination of its Pontiac and Saturn brands.

I was just driving by and saw the building was empty, and I knew (Kelley) is a good businessman, said company president Kitchin, whose operation in the former Saturn building employs 10 people but expects to triple that number soon, on the way to a 60-member work force once production hits the target of 100 conversions per month.



An ambitious goal for a firm that has sold only six trucks so far? Yes. But Kitchin and Kelley insist that’s only the beginning for a company offering a product to a client base that is, unfortunately, likely to grow.



It wasn’t the possibility of profit that initially caught Kitchins attention. He simply wanted to find a more-exciting alternative to his old van, but quickly learned the options were limited. One Florida company, he said, produced two wheel drive versions featuring a lift stored under the vehicle. I asked how that would work in ice and snow and they said, We don’t sell many up north, Kitchin recalled.



So he, an engineer friend and others worked to design and build the kind of truck Kitchin and other people with disabilities would like to drive, but cannot.



The result is a patented, heavy duty mechanism that extends from the cab, lowers a platform able to accommodate a wheelchair, then raises the platform before retracting the driver back into the cab, where the chair is locked in place. Kitchin hopes to market the converted trucks through specialty dealerships nationwide, which will equip the trucks with steering mechanisms designed to accommodate each driver.



When I got behind the wheel of our first truck, I couldn’t help smiling, said Kitchin, who is married and has two children.



Kelley may soon be smiling, too. Even though he is allowing GoShichi to use his old 20,000 square-foot Saturn dealership rent-free, he sells the GMC and Chevrolet trucks Kitchin will use most many of them made at GMs Allen County plant.



The handshake deal is already bearing fruit. Kitchin said a company on the East Coast has ordered 150 trucks, and with 40,000 converted vans being sold every year, the demand should increase. The four-wheel-drive option also should appeal to disabled veterans, Kelley said.



GoShichis conversions add about $25,000 to the cost of the truck, but government programs help pay the cost for veterans and others.



Tagged as: Disabled · Disabled Person · mobility for the disabled · motorized wheelchair · wheelchair accesible · wheelchair accessibility · wheelchair accessible transportation · wheelchair accessible vehicles