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The Glo Car Wash:
a Gleaming Success
By Jim and Elaine Norland

Just a few months old, an express exterior car wash is racking up impressive sales figures in a northwest suburban area of Denver — but its owner-operator has years of his own success in car washing and generations of car wash expertise in his family.

The Glo Car Wash at 6315 Sheridan Blvd. in Arvada, CO opened last Nov. 28 in an imposing structure across from a busy King Soopers shopping center. Even though its market area is characterized by modest household incomes, almost half of Glo customers are going for the top-line wash without urging or upselling by its driveway greeter says Mike Huggins. A menu board naming some of the brands and features of that $10 wash probably helps, however.

Before building and owning his wash, Huggins worked for Car Wash Express in the Denver area for about five years, developing and managing properties for that group. He already had a strong family background in car washing. His grandfather was a pioneer of car washing in Detroit, and his father, Dale Huggins, owns Gas ‘n’ Glo exterior car washes in Detroit. His uncle, Larry Huggins, owns a car wash in Wixom, MI.

Mike Huggins managed car washes for owners outside his family while he was in high school and community college, and came to Colorado for snowboarding in the Rockies, going to school during summer months. He met with the Car Wash Express investor group as they were building express car washes and soon joined them.

The new Glo Car Wash (the company logo is all lower-case letters) is an exterior-only car wash tunnel that combines high pressure and friction washing, using Mark VII’s SoftLine equipment. The system is designed to give customers a “clean, dry, and shiny car in under five minutes,” the company noted in opening announcements.

Mark VII officials have hailed the opening of a wash with its newest technology so close to company headquarters. “It’s a beautiful facility on a major commuter artery with no competing tunnels in the market area,” noted Murray Kennedy, CEO. “We expect it will be a showcase site both for Mike and for Mark VII.”

The tunnel wash is highly visible through a window-filled wall facing traffic on a busy Denver traffic artery. The same windows let in a lot of light. The Glo wash is housed in an imposing structure with some portions of the front soaring 36 feet above grade.

The tan building looks massive, and is accommodating for incoming cars with an indoor turnoff. The conveyor is 136 feet long, but the tunnel’s overall length is 170 feet. The structure is up to 60 feet wide in some areas.

With that expanse of glass and overall size, the building may look almost too grand for first-time customers. “Because of the look of the building and grounds, some coming in for the first time ask about how much the wash costs. They’re afraid it’s going to cost $20 or $30 for a wash, and they’re very pleasantly surprised when they see our menu being so simple and low priced,” Huggins reports. The structure sits on a 1.2-acre property, handsomely landscaped with grass, shrubs, and river rock. A number of trees, very small now but certain to grow quickly, add to the greenery and natural look of the site.