Wheel Pros (aka Hoonigan) appears to be in trouble & is likely filing for bankruptcy. If you’re not familiar with the Wheel Pros name, that’s ok, it’s mostly an B-to-B industry name… but it’s HUGE behind the scenes. To bring you up to speed, Wheel Pros is backed by an investment firm called Clearlake. During Covid, Wheel Pros started buying-up A LOT of brands in the aftermarket industry. To the point where it became a joke of who they were gonna buy next. The majority of the purchased brands were wheel companies (Fuel, Rotiform, American Force, TSW, Black Rhino, & XD just to name a few). But they also bought off-road suspension/lighting companies, 4 Wheel Parts, and digital media companies as well. The prize of which being Hoonigan.
When Ken Block passed away, Wheel Pros decided to just adopt their entire name over to Hoonigan. Even at that point, the Hoonigan had become way too commercialized & diluted. But still – it went over like 10 simultaneous farts in an elevator. Cut to right now – and it seems like they might have better off more than they could chew. Will Hoonigan survive this? And if not, what will happen to all those brands? Time will tell.
You can read the new article HERE. It’s a short read, but if you hate reading, here’s Mike to talk about it a little bit….
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