About us

It was 1982, and I was watching the first episode of Knight Rider - the hit TV show with David Hasselhoff about a car that spoke and drove by itself. My eyes were glued with my pupils dilated, dreaming of the day I'd hit "Turbo Boost" while jumping over a bridge, saving the girl and the world. At 19, I started working at Goodguys Car Stereo as a part-time Audio installer while pursuing my design degree. My workplace allowed me to work on my personal project, ICEBERG (a '95 Civic), on nights and weekends, enabling me to cultivate my creativity. It was the era of "The Fast and the Furious," and cars with unnecessary "Powered by Rice" stickers. I embraced this trend but wanted to build something unique. Iceberg had clean lines with a blended body kit, shaved door handles with automatic doors, a custom 10-speaker audio system with 2 wig-splitting 15" subs, blue interior LED photon lighting, white leather interior with white carpet, engine, suspension, and exhaust mods, and a plethora of other first-of-a-kind mods not seen on any other car. It was the talk of the town, but I tried not to go out much due to being pulled over by the po po the second I put it in second (not fun!). Being in Silicon Valley, I first applied my skills to designing software products and tools. I also studied Human-Computer Interaction, which allowed me to solve design problems by first understanding user goals, motivations, and emotion. I kept designing software as a career path but managed to apply my learnings to cars, and soon enough, a Cartist was born.

Omair Ali