We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kevin Abril. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kevin below.
Kevin , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.
As a teenager I fell in love with cars and knew I wanted to be part of that world. After high school I meet my mentor who was crazy enough to work on a design that I had for my car. working next to him I learned a lot on design process, materials, procedures, etc. From there on I decided to take a risk and pursue designing automotive exterior parts.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Right after high school I took my 1989 Nissan 240 sx to a shop owned by who eventually became my mentor “Alvaro”. I sketched up some designs based on a wide body kit that he came up with for the eclipse at that time. There I saw how he can manipulate fiberglass to any shape possible. I fell in love with that concept and immediately starting absorbing all information he was feeding to me. I loved how an idea can be turned into reality. I’ve always loved working with my hands and coming up with different designs. Once I learned how to shape fiberglass I asked a friend to lend me his car (a Mazda 6) so I can make a body kit for his car. He was excited to see the process. Once completed I had a friend do me a simple website and I started marketing it to all Mazda 6 owners. The kit was not a hit but I learned a lot of lessons from that.
With all the knowledge I gained from the Mazda 6 I decided to try again with a new brand at that time call “Scion” they catered to young enthusiast who like to modify their cars. At that time I had two friends with the “tC” models and I was able to borrow them to create a lip kit for it. This one was a hit, people loved the design and we started to get sales. There I learned what people are looking for when designing a kit, and ever since then I keep listening to the car community and keep up with the new trends.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
My end goal is to create my own vehicle. Come up with a beautiful design that people would love to drive and that turns heads everywhere they go. Something that the more you look at, the more beautiful it gets. It’s a long term goal since all the funds are coming from all the kits we sell, but its what motivates me to keep going, keep growing, and investing on the business to eventually have all the capabilities to manufacture it.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
The most rewarding is to have customers tell you how our splitter kits change the whole look of their cars, and anyone can tell you they love the design but to have customers spend thousands of dollars and wait 1-2 months for their kit that really shows they really like our kits. We ofter get emails from customers raving how easy it was to install the kit, and how it exceeded their expectations, that to see is the ultimate feeling.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.niaautodesign.com
- Instagram: niabodykitsusa
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/niabodykitsusa?mibextid=LQQJ4d
- Linkedin: http://linkedin.com/in/niabodykits
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@NIABodyKits
- Other: NIA Body Kits corp. 12262 SW 130st Miami, FL 33186