The Story of HTH Car Top Signs
The Story of HTH Signs and the Invention of Car Toppers
It All Started with Pizza
Bill Elmer will be the first to tell you, he loves pizza as much as the next guy. But where others just see tomato sauce and mozzarella, Bill saw business potential.
In the early 1980s, pizza delivery was mostly limited to college campuses. However, with so many couples working, the demand for food delivery was rising quickly.
Bill brainstormed about ways to quickly transport hot food to customers in their home. Pizza delivery was in its infancy, but Bill could taste the hint of a revolutionary movement. He visualized a potential market with an insatiable appetite, one that would expand around the globe.
Hot to Home, A Concept Becomes a Company
In 1984, Bill established Hot to Home, a company focused on bringing innovation to the pizza delivery industry. One of the first products Bill created was the hot bag, designed to keep pizzas warm while in transit. It was immediately popular, and demand grew rapidly as did the market for home-delivered pizza.
Unfortunately, the name Hot to Home meant the company sometimes received calls from people who wrongly assumed they were contacting an escort service. So Bill, laughing at the misinterpretation, soon changed the name to HTH, Inc.
Car Top Signs Were Next
With the success of the hot bag, Bill confidently pursued other pizza delivery inventions. He designed, developed and patented his first car top sign, the Stacker, in 1984. Over the next six years, this sign increased in popularity until most major chains that offered food delivery services were using it.
In 1987, Bill created two window-mounted car signs, the Wing and the Bullet. Now, there were three signs being sold not just in the U.S., but throughout the world.
Best of all, the companies using them were loudly singing their praises. They noticed that adding car signs to their delivery vehicles resulted in an immediate increase in sales, often by as much as 40%!
Car Sign Magnets Attract More Customers
In 1990, Bill came up with a concept that would change the car sign industry. He developed and patented a magnet assembly that would allow car top signs to be affixed to the roof of delivery cars.
No longer did car signs have to rely on straps and hooks attached to vehicles. This simplified the mounting and opened up use to almost all cars. Restaurants could simply hire anyone with a vehicle, stick a car sign on it, and the driver was good to go. HTH saw an immediate surge in customer demand.
The Pie Grows, Expands Beyond Pizza Delivery
By 1994, Bill had designed and patented the most popular car sign on the market to this day, the magnetic Quad. He had also modified the original Stacker sign from a strap attachment to a magnetic attachment. Soon to follow were two other window-mounted car signs, the Pizza Box and the Campus Insider, and also the smaller version of the Quad, the Mini Quad.
With these innovations, the numbers and types of car-top sign customers grew. HTH was no longer only selling to pizza restaurants. Driving schools, retail stores, neighborhood watch groups, taxis, shuttles, political campaigns and more started to use its car toppers.
Custom Design for Car Toppers
In 1996, Bill’s son Steve Elmer joined the company. He focused on making improvements to the existing seven car signs and on new product development. Companies began to approach HTH for customized solutions.
Working together, Bill and Steve were commissioned to develop custom car toppers for Domino’s Pizza, then Papa John’s. Their car sign designs became the standardized signs for each company and are still in use today.
Today, Bill Elmer is retired but HTH remains a family owned and operated business. Bill’s son, Steve, and his wife, SarahFox, run the company with the same integrity and care that Bill did for 24 years.
After Bill’s retirement, Steve would go on to design and patent two other car top signs, the Pizza Hut “Hut” and the Auto Advertiser, as well as improvements to many sign components like the magnetic cup assembly and cigarette cord. Most recently he developed an LED rechargeable battery light system.
HTH Today, Leading the Car Sign Industry
HTH owns 18 car top sign-related patents and counting. Product innovation remains a corporate priority, as does using the best materials and quality-assured manufacturing processes. HTH sets the standards for the car top sign industry.
As the largest producer of car top signs in the world, HTH supplies signs to the major pizza chains here in the U.S. and abroad including: Papa John’s, Pizza Hut, Domino’s, Hungry Howie’s, Jimmy John’s as well as literally hundreds of other customers, big and small.
It has a 35,000 square foot, state-of-the-art facility in Winter Park, Florida and employs 25 people. In addition to car top signs, it sells sign parts and a wide range of sign accessories.
HTH also houses a glass etching operation, a t-shirt screen printing division and a graphic design department.
