Champion Xpress Carwash under construction at Santa Fe Place
Company has 11 locations in N.M.; this will be first in S.F.
Champion Xpress Carwash operations are sprouting across the state, with one under construction at the Zafarano Drive entrance to Santa Fe Place mall.
Champion Xpress is based in Lubbock, Texas, but has 11 of its current 15 locations in New Mexico, all opened since 2018 with another 16 planned by the end of 2023, chief marketing officer Lindsey Joy said.
The Santa Fe location is expected to open in November and follows six already open in Albuquerque (the first in March 2020 and four acquired in December from Rain Tunnel Car Spa), one each in Los Lunas (opened November 2018), Gallup (January 2020), Española (August 2020), Silver City (May 2021), Las Vegas, N.M. (January 2022) and Rio Rancho (March 2022).
The Champion Xpress website has posted as “coming soon” another 41 future locations, including more in Albuquerque, Gallup and Rio Rancho and entries into the market in Taos, Aztec, Belen and Farmington.
Champion currently has two locations in Colorado (Cañon City and Alamosa), and one each in Utah and Iowa, with more slated for Colorado and Iowa plus a return to Texas and two acquisitions announced in July in Iowa and Illinois.
“We are considered an express tunnel,” Joy said. “Typically, you are in and out of the tunnel in three minutes.”
Customers stay in the car. One of the tunnel options is a three-step ceramic coating. Champion Express in Santa Fe will also have 36 free vacuum stations for customers to use and a mat-washing station, Joy said.
Champion Xpress was established in 2015 by the Merchant Family Companies, which also has the 7B Building & Development construction company that is the general contractor for the Santa Fe car wash.
The first Champion Xpress was an acquisition in Plainview, Texas, just north of Lubbock. The first Champion Xpress built by 7B was in Roswell but has since be sold, as were eight of the first nine Champion Xpresses, mostly in Texas. Merchant also had 15 Dale Shine Carwash operations in Texas but sold them all.
“We looked at that as learning the car wash business,” Joy said. ”It helped us to hone where we wanted to be and what we wanted to be.”
Albuquerque is Champion Xpress’ biggest market even though the Merchant family is based in Lubbock. Earlier in life, family patriarch Chad Merchant coached football and basketball in the New Mexico communities of Capitan, Jal and Carlsbad, and his oldest of three sons was born in New Mexico.
“The family moved to Lubbock and set roots down but never lost the love for New Mexico,” Joys said.
Chad Merchant started 7B Building & Development in 2009, and car washes became among the retail structures they built. Son Trey figured the family could operate car washes, too. Trey was the CEO at Champion Xpress until moving over to 7B last year.
Car washes seem to proliferate, but Champion Xpress evaluates the market by how many people don’t use car washes.
“What we see from an industry standpoint, it’s only a small percentage of people that utilize car washes,” Joy said. “We believe there is a lot of potential growth for car washes.”
They opened locations in Utah in February 2020, Colorado in January 2021, Iowa in December 2021 and Illinois in July.
The core market will be New Mexico, Colorado and Texas. Champion Xpress is not actively seeking new states.
“The current plan is to grow in the states we are already in,” Joy said.