At the northern tip of Green River Road, about a mile from where it meets Petersburg Road, a car detailing service shop is fueled by the drive of a father-son duo. Garth Wilkinson and his son Trent opened GT Detail — named for each of their first initials — in March 2021.
“I was in Texas when (COVID-19) hit, and I didn’t know if I was going to get to come home,” says Garth, a Boonville, Indiana, native. “(Trent) was working at Gerst Haus, and (when it temporarily closed) his income went to nothing. I said, ‘Let’s do something where we’re not subject to that kind of crap ever again.’”
Starting with a small space in Newburgh, Indiana, the company — which consists of Garth, Trent, Trent’s girlfriend Ashley Chesser, and detailer Jason Culligan — has already expanded at 12725 N. Green River Road to a full-service shop. While Garth is the self-described “man in the chair” running daily operations, Trent is a Detail King-certified Auto Detailing Craftsman and an unabashed car enthusiast.
“I do enjoy seeing people’s reaction and hearing, ‘That’s cleaner than when I picked it up when it was new,’” says Trent. “Customers are a mix, but it tends to lean more toward the average working-class type who just doesn’t have the time to actually (detail) their vehicles.”
GT Detail isn’t a franchise but is licensed through the Detail King auto detailing brand, which created GT Detail’s logo and website as part of its business start-up package. GT Detail also offers Detail King, PRO Car Beauty, and other professional retail products in store. But the star of GT Detail’s services is its mobile detail van.
“You could park your vehicle in a field — as long as I can get that van to it, we have electricity and water (to perform detailing),” says Trent.
One of the only licensed mobile detailers in the Tri-State, GT Detail offers all its services, except paint correction and coatings, on the road. Prices don’t differ between mobile or in-house services, and Trent describes the pricing as á la carte per service charged by the hour.
“We’re a small business, so our hours are whatever they need to be,” says Garth, who often drives customers home or to work while their cars are cleaned. “We’ll cater to the customers. We all know what it’s like to try to do stuff in life, and it’s hard to find the time to do it and the money to do it, so we try to help every way that we can.”
