| Type | Privately Held |
|---|---|
| Industry | Consumer electronics |
| Founded | February 1980 |
| Headquarters | Oxnard, California |
| Key people | Roger Alves, President Kas Alves, Executive Vice President Peter Butcher, Vice President, Operations Vince Alves, Vice President, Sales |
| Products | Car audio and iPod, iPhone, touch and nano accessories |
| Website | Scosche Industries. |
Scosche Industries [1] began in 1980 as a research and consulting company for other manufacturers. Founded in the garage of Roger and Scotia Alves, their initial business goal was to provide both the novice and professional installer with the most up-to-date information on installation techniques for a variety of vehicles. Companies such as Alpine Electronics, Kenwood, Craig, Pioneer, Jensen and Harada all used Scosche to provide them with vehicle information.
Through their research, they realized that dedicated installation kits, to achieve ease of installation and a perfect factory-like fit without cutting the dash area, was the perfect new product. They then designed and patented kits for the most popular vehicles, allowing installation of almost any head unit in place of the stock system.
Scosche Industries continues to market the products that founded the company with the Scosche Autosound Encyclopedia, considered by many to be the "bible" of the car audio industry, and dash and wiring installation kits for most new domestic and import vehicles.
Most recently, Scosche Industries designed and developed industry-leading Bluetooth iPod/MP3 interfaces and accessories.[1] Scosche’s Bluetooth wireless technology transmits continuous streaming audio with digital sound CD quality to a car or home receiver.
In addition to these signature products, the following are some of the products Scosche Industries markets through its four different brands: iPod and iPhone accessories; award-winning high-end power wire, platinum plated distribution blocks and audio cable; sound damping and heat insulation material; patented CD music storage; and high-end speakers and amps. Scosche Industries currently holds fifty-eight patents for its innovative product designs and markets five distinct brand lines including EFX, BlueFusion, Accumat, REALM and the signature Scosche line.
In November 1997 Scosche Industries relocated to a new 60,000 sq ft (5,600 m2) building in Oxnard, California. In addition to sales and accounting offices, this facility houses a full technical department with research and development, and customer technical support. This production facility also includes manufacturing, assembly and shipping, and the plastic injection molding for car stereo installation kits is also done on the premises.
In October 2002 Scosche added a warehouse in Alabama providing east coast customers with 1-3 day shipping across the United States. Then in early 2003 Scosche acquired another 20,000 warehouse in Oxnard to accommodate the 50% growth experienced. Scosche also maintains direct ship operations in Hong Kong for those countries whose proximity is near the Pacific Rim.
Scosche Industries protects its product designs by owning 58 patents. Servicing the car audio industry with a very strong 2,000 account dealer base as well as building O.E.M. products for many other manufacturers (such as Ford, Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge). Scosche’s largest customers include Best Buy, Crutchfield, Ford Motor, Meijer, and Wal*Mart.
Scosche prides itself in showcasing its products in unique show vehicles including its legendary REALM '63 Lincoln.[2][3]
Contents |
In the 1980s, Scosche employed several up and coming designers, including Daniel Reyes, Rob Putman, and Roy Nimpoeno. These were early days in the history of modern autosound, and these design pioneers left their stamp on the industry.
The first Scosche product was a radio adapter kit designed to fit the 1982 GM J model cars, which included the Chevrolet Cavalier, Pontiac J2000, and Cadillac Cimarron. The adapter kits were commissioned by Alpine Electronics for their new to the market digital equalizers and head units.
Historically, auto radios had a central face and one knob on each side of the face, for volume and tuning. The shafts that the knobs were attached to were threaded and used to hold the radio to the dashboard.
The new GM radio was a rectangular box and the opening in the dashboard was an empty rectangle with no way to secure an aftermarket radio to it. The J model had a bent metal bracket screwed to the top and that was screwed to the subdash. The new adapter for Alpine was a plastic panel with openings to mount the new radio and with ears molded at the top.
Not long after this, GM released the A model cars, which used this same boxy radio, but with different mounting brackets in a different location on the radio. It looked like GM was going to make different versions for each model (eventually they made 26 versions). This created a problem for molded mounting kits; tooling would get to be very expensive and a great number of parts would have to be inventoried. The market leaders for radio installation kits, at that time American International and Ampersand, made metal frames duplicating the GM radio housing, and added plastic faceplates. Using this required having the correct metal brackets on hand.
At around this time, Fujitsu Ten, Blaupunkt, and Alpine were introducing DIN chassis radios that just did not fit in these metal adapters.
Looking for a solution, Daniel Reyes, working with Roger Alves, developed an inverted strategy for a new adapter kit. Rather than build one kit for each GM car, why not build one kit for all GM cars? Instead of using one set of mounting provisions and twenty-six brackets, why not use one set of brackets and a series of slots? Roger Alves was so confident in this design that tooling started right away, and the kit was introduced at the 1984 CES. This kit proved to be so effective that even after it was patented (US patent #4462564) Ampersand copied it. American International spent 3 years developing a version with plug in rectangles.
Scosche immediately followed up with another Daniel Reyes / Roger Alves creation, a Ford / Chrysler multi kit (US patent #4560124), which Metra knocked off almost immediately. The race to develop multi kits was on.