7/22/2023 0 Comments Weather tech owner![]() ![]() The brand markets heavily, running ads on national TV, radio, billboards and in more than 100 print publications.īut there's no marketing platform like the Super Bowl. Many customers and casual observers would have recognized the WeatherTech name even before the Super Bowl ad. MacNeil Automotive now also supplies rooftop cargo carriers, side-window deflectors, mud flaps and other car accessorites.īut as he has expanded his operations around suburban Chicago, MacNeil said proudly, he hasn't asked for "any support whatsoever form local or national governments in building our factories." WeatherTech supplies floor liners to a handful of OEMs at this point, the German luxury brands, and he's looking to do more factory business. We don't have to wait for a ship to come from thousands of miles away - we can manufacture right here, right now." Handling everything in Illinois, he said, also "means we're quick-to-market. "If you combine American technology with great American workers, you can be competitive with anyone, anytime, around the world," he said. MacNeil insisted that WeatherTech's way is the winning one, anyway. "I'm going to manufacture here in America, and it really doesn't matter if I can manufacture more cheaply overseas." "I don't really care what I do is from the heart," he said. MacNeil doesn't want to hear about what kind of cost premium he might be paying because he refuses to outsource manufacturing to China or elsewhere. MacNeil also has kept nearly every aspect of WeatherTech's operations in-house, right down to having his own employees staff the consumer call center and plowing company parking lots with his own trucks. Digitization and CAD- CAM technology have helped WeatherTech make snug-fitting, protective, premium-priced floor liners for practically anything that moves.Īnd now everything - from most of the plant's tooling to its vast supply of sheet plastic - comes to the company's suburban-Chicago operations from only in America. But as WeatherTech's retail success grew, MacNeil pivoted to making the floor liners himself, in Illinois. initially imported mats from the United Kingdom. There are a couple of good restaurants in Hinsdale, Ill. I could probably live off of both Italian and Japanese food the rest of my life and I would be happy.MacNeil Automotive Products Ltd. My girlfriend and I both certainly know how to read a restaurant menu. I’m also a huge Chicago Blackhawks fan.įOOD FOR THOUGHT: I certainly enjoy good food and a glass of wine now and then. ![]() I have a pool at home that I try to swim in quite a bit. Sometimes I like to go to Colorado and get some skiing in. I get a little traveling in now and again. It was just him and one other driver, so they "ironman"-ed it for 24 hours, which was pretty cool.īLACKHAWK CROWN: My other hobby is learning to fly a helicopter. We went to France in ’14 when my son raced. I have three kids -20, 23 and 24 - so I try to spend time with them. SHIFTING GEARS: My guilty weekend pleasure is driving an old sports car with a conventional manual gear box just enjoying some old school driving without any electronics watching over me. The email side of things is almost never ending. Otherwise, you start off the week buried. But when you run a business in America, you really can’t ignore your emails over the weekend. I am going to get up and eat a healthy breakfast and get off to the track to start to get prepared for the race. The race is 3:00pm on Saturday until 3:00pm on Sunday. After that, I am heading to bed because I have a 24-hour race the next day. IDLE TIME: We have a business dinner on Friday evening with customers, partners and employees. MacNeil: “I am going to do the best I can in the race car. In addition to the automotive floor mat manufacturer taking over title sponsorship of the IMSA SportsCar Championship at the beginning of November, MacNeil is also competing in this weekend’s Rolex 24 at Daytona Int’l Speedway - the track’s first race after completion of the long-awaited Daytona Rising project. For Illinois-based WeatherTech Founder & CEO DAVID MACNEIL, racing is not only a hobby, but a way of life.
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