This artist's rendering gives an idea of just how impressive the new Memphis Shades facility will be. The new 84,000 square foot plant in Rossville, Tennessee is scheduled to begin operations in February 2006. This new building will house all facets of Memphis Shades, from administration, to design and production, to warehousing and shipping. The building even allows for a future expansion up to a total of 120,000 square feet!

orking out of a family barn in Rossville, Tennessee, a small town just east of Memphis, Allen Mueller started the motorcycle windshield business now known as Memphis Shades. The year was 1974. Before moving to Collierville, another Memphis suburb, more than 60,000 motorcycle windshields were produced in that barn. Over the years- and from four separate buildings added as the business grew - hundreds of thousands of windshields have been produced. The Memphis Fats, Memphis Slims, the Sportshields, Big Shots, Alley Cats, Pop Tops, Bladerunners, Demons and countless other shapes, sizes and colors of windshields and windscreens have become maybe the best-known, best-selling and most-asked-for accessory windshields in the aftermarket.
     And now Memphis Shades is going back to Rossville, fittingly the town where it all began. Only this time all that production won't be happening in a barn. Memphis Shades is moving into its own brand-new facility, a state of the art complex encompassing 84,000 square feet. This new building will put everything under one roof. Administration, design, production, warehousing and shipping have all been integrated into the plans. Two years in development, the new building even allows for future expansion up to a full 120,000 square feet. The place is huge. It's built on a 10-acre lot. The Memphis Shades GNC Race Team, run by hall-of-famer Babe DeMay will also be headquartered there, as well, complete with race shop and dyno room.
     More than just gaining needed space, the new Memphis Shades plant has been designed especially for the needs of motorcycle windshield manufacturing. All the processes, the cutting and routing of the plastics, the windshield forming and dyeing and the production of the stainless steel and aluminum mounting hardware has been logically positioned to maximize the workflow. There's a lot of new tooling going in, too. The new plant, scheduled to begin operations in February 2006, will have multiple automated dye lines, all CNC controlled, and all aspects of production, all the forming and dyeing, all the hardware manufacturing, all the stainless steel stamping and aluminum CNC machining has been updated and automated.
     The new Memphis Shades building will even have its own air management testing facility, something unique to the motorcycle windshield aftermarket. A sort of wind tunnel, custom designed for Memphis Shades, this in-house R&D and testing facility will allow Memphis Shades to accurately fine tune the designs of its windshields and windscreens to maximize their on-road effectiveness.
     There's little question Memphis Shades needed this new space. Look through the Parts Unlimited catalogs. Counting the Memphis Fats, Memphis Slims, all those Sportshields, handlebar-mount windshields and windscreens - in all those gradient-tint colors, shapes, sizes, styles and applications - you'll find hundreds of different part numbers listed. It all began back in '74 when those first windshields came out of a barn in Rossville, Tennessee. Beginning in February, Memphis Shades will be back in Rossville, but this time they'll be "making hay" in a new factory. It's state of the art, too, just like every windshield and windscreen that will be made there. As always, Parts Unlimited will be stocking them all.