DV8: A Place for Car, Truck Owners Who Want to Take Their Rides to the Next Level
Written by Jan Norris
Photos by Cari Lager & Elizabeth Palace
Outside the door of his shop, DV8 Motorsports, Cary Jones has parked his current ride. It’s black matte and sleek.
“It’s a 2024 C-8 Corvette; six months old. A good stress relief.”
Cover image by Elizabeth Palace
For Jones, who’s been into muscle cars and trucks since he was a teen, just handling a car with a V-8 gas engine and close to 500 horsepower is calming.
“I like feeling the motor, hearing the sound of an engine turning over. Feeling it.”
He’s standing by a window full of forged aluminum rims in his shop where the sunlight streaming through their spoke patterns turns them into art.
They’re oversized — 18 to 20 inches.
“Big trucks. That’s what these rims are for. We put wheels on everything from golf carts — not many now — to F-250s,” he said.
Most wheel jobs also involve lifts. He said trucks can be lifted from 2 to 16 inches, or lowered, 2 to 5. For cars, it’s lowering only, from ½ inch to 2 inches.
“Even ½ inch can make a difference in the handling,” he said.
Enhancing both performance and appearance is what it’s all about here, where car enthusiasts can get their rides customized with rims to match paint, smart suspension lifts, or lowering, and gas and diesel performance parts. Computers tweak engines for optimum output, he said.
Jones handles orders for 25 to 30 vehicles a month, working in his eight-bay garage on the popular F-250s, Jeeps and Broncos. “The Broncos are now as popular as Jeeps,” he said.
He does work for dealerships, doing all the customizing their buyers require. “I do builds for Napleton Dodge — their Jeeps — Greico Ford in Delray Beach, Schumacher Chevy GMC.”
Customers want high performance engines, fender flares, and rims to make them stand out from a road full of look-alikes. They pay from $1,600 to $10,000 and up to get the custom look and sporty ride. The builds can take from one day to three months, depending on the parts needed and complexity of the work.
“The problem with today’s cars, everything looks the same. So everybody wants to individualize their car. They want to customize it. It makes it more exciting to drive.”
While most of his customers are older, there are young drivers coming in to get rims and maybe lifts.
“We have a lot of repeat customers. That’s a cool thing, to design things for the dad, then his kids come to us for their cars, and now, we’re seeing their kids.”
Jones, 46, has been changing up his cars since he was a teen. He’s from Vancouver, Canada, but has been in Florida since he was 15.
“I’ll never go back up north.”
He got interested in motorsports in high school, fixing up his own car, then his friends’. He opened his first shop 23 years ago on Dixie Highway in Lake Park, and moved to the current location in 2013. “I turned my passion into a business,” he said.
He’s been involved in racing and rallies around the state as well. “I was drag racing stock, and road racing. I sponsored the drag races at Moroso Speedway.”
Jones also took his Mercedes Benz CL5 63 AMG, “the one that got away, “ on a road rally from the Keys to Orlando.
He eventually sold it, but it’s the one car he wishes he had again. “It’s an amazing car. A four-door, with 724 horsepower and 820 pounds of torque. You could cruise at 185 and it was so smooth.”
Now, along with the Corvette, he has a 1970 Chevelle SS and a 1968 Lincoln Continental.
A land yacht?
“It’s a classic car — has the suicide doors. I’ve wanted one for 10 years and finally found the right one. It’s something you just get in and cruise. It’s a great date-night car.”
For trucks, he drives a 2023 F-250, a 2024 F-150 Raptor and a 2024 Ford Bronco Raptor.
“And I just bought a restored VW bus.” This was after a weekend at Barrett Jackson auction — a car lover’s dream. “My girlfriend wanted one,” Jones said.
But don’t look for electric cars in his garage, and few come in the shop.
“We’ve done Cybertrucks and Hummers, but as cool as you make them, they’re still not cool,” he said, laughing.
And his fantasy car?
“One of the Lamborghini’s. A Revuelto, probably.” But dropping $600,000 for a car isn’t in his game plan just now.
“I could do things like that when I was younger. Now that I have kids, it’s off the table.” But his daughter, 9, plays a role in the business. “She loves the Jeep ducks,” he said. Jeep owners frequently place rubber ducks on the windshields of other Jeeps. “It’s just a thing. So we designed our own duck with our logo and we put them out there,” he said. “It’s a great branding tool.”
DV8 Motorsports
1018 Federal Hwy, Lake Park.
Phone (561) 8402023; facebook.com/DV8MOTORSPORTSINC
