About Us

Welcome to Melrose Kiwi Concept Chairs USA.

We design and fabricate custom made Sports Wheelchairs and quality wheelchair products.

Melrose Kiwi Concept Chairs USA Inc. is a wheelchair manufacturing company who cater for the specialised sports wheelchair market, particularly wheelchairs for Rugby, Tennis and Basketball.   The wheelchairs are custom made and are built to the individual specifications as required by the athlete, the sport, and the position they play.   We also produce and supply wheelchair parts including vinyl hand-rims that are supplied to other wheelchair manufacturers.

Melrose Kiwi Concept Chairs USA is a business, set up in Fresno - California in July 2008.   The business combines the successful New Zealand wheelchair business Melrose Kiwi Concept Chairs with the local American expertise and skills.

Phil Melrose is the business owner and he has successfully run Melrose Kiwi Concept Chairs in New Zealand for 30 years.   Phil teamed up an with existing wheelchair company from Fresno to supply the quality sports wheelchairs that New Zealand was producing for the world, but not having the resources to cater for the US market.

History

Phil, innovator and designer, himself in a wheelchair, understands the needs of the customers.   Phil had an accident in January 1991, which put him in a wheelchair, hampered with a number of frustrations with his own wheelchair he started building a wheelchair for himself out of lightweight titanium, this was so successful he gradually had more built as he sold them to friends and acquaintances.

The small part time garage interest became a business when Mike Turner joined Phil to do the welding of the frames.   Mike saw the potential and took the risk of leaving his own full time employment to help the business grow.   It has slowly grown over 30 years to a medium size business of over 50 staff with it’s own purpose built building in Christchurch, New Zealand.    The business has developed a name throughout the world for high quality Rugby wheelchairs.

Over the 30 years that the business has been going, Mike and Phil have built up good relationships with American business people, particularly wheelchair parts suppliers and wheelchair rugby players.   When an opportunity presented itself to develop a similar successful wheelchair manufacturing business in the US Phil took it.   This has proved to be a good move gaining us a higher profile in the US market and presenting us with many more North American athletes.

In our effort to further extend the sporting resources available to US athletes we look forward to developing further ties with US sporting organizations and sports funders.