Fast Eddie’s Express Car Wash in Brunswick. Contributed.

Fast Eddie’s — a Maine car wash business with a location on Pleasant Street in Brunswick — sold for an undisclosed price earlier this month to a Connecticut-based holding company.

Brunswick’s Fast Eddie’s opened in September 2019 and is the second location. The original Fast Eddie’s opened in Augusta in January 2016.

Ed Goff, the previous owner, declined to specify the selling price and the name of the company, but said the buyer told him the Fast Eddie’s name would remain along with its 20 current employees. He said the company plans to add more locations. Attempts to contact Jim Waterman, a spokesperson for the company, were unsuccessful on Monday.

The total assessed parcel value for Brunswick location about $1.17 million, according to town records. The Augusta location is assessed at $761,600.

Goff, who owned both locations outright, said the reason to sell was twofold — incoming competition and a hot real-estate market. “We got a price that was hard to say no to,” he said.

Prior to the sale, plans for new locations in both Bangor and Brewer fell through due to competition, Goff said.

A site he was eyeing in Bangor didn’t work out after being outbid by a private equity group also looking to build a car wash, Goff said. Then just a few days later, Goff pulled out of a second proposed location in Brewer after learning another car wash was being built just down the road.

“That’s when we decided that maybe we were on the wrong side of it, that things were getting pretty aggressive and we were seeing a lot of, hearing a lot of rumors of other washes going in and maybe we should look at actually selling our two locations,” said Goff.

Ed Goff’s son, Ed the 5th, spraying a car inside the carwash in April. Courtesy of Ed Goff

The industry is seemingly growing in Maine, Goff said, a trend that he thinks will continue in part fueled by membership-based services and chain car washes. His business continuously saw growth, he added, with this past year his best on record.

In the Midcoast, Casco Bay Car Wash in Freeport opened in May 2021, according to the company’s social media page.

In the fall, the town of Topsham approved plans for a new carwash submitted by a Texas-based group for a site off Topsham Fair Mall Road. It will be the town’s second car wash, called Shammy’s Carwash.

According to one of the company’s principals, Jon Young, the Topsham location is one of about 10 proposed sites in Maine and 20 throughout New England. Young said there is not a lot of focus on express car washes in the area, similar to that of Fast Eddie’s, which uses more modern washing technology than some of the older businesses in New England. Shammy’s will be membership-based, meaning subscribers will be able to visit all of the locations.

“New England is actually a very good car washing environment as opposed to some of the other parts of the United States, it’s really a need in New England with the weather and the environment there,” said Young.

Nationally there were 16,976 car washes in 2019, a 6.8% increase over 2015, according to a June 2021 report from the United States Census Bureau. The same report states that in 2017 “employees of car washes in Maine were the most ‘productive,’ generating $94,234 in sales per employee compared to $60,099 for the nation.”

Car wash sales in North America currently total approximately $15 billion, according to the International Carwash Association. The organization also reports that the percentage of U.S. drivers who most frequently wash their vehicle at a car wash increased from around 48% in 1995 to roughly 77% in 2019.

Goff, a resident of Norridgewock, started out in the car wash business after purchasing Butler’s Car Wash in Skowhegan from his father-in-law in 2009. He sold Butler’s in 2019. Goff said he is slightly sad to be parting with his business, but also excited to see it potentially grow in the coming years. The name Fast Eddie’s came from Goff’s grandfather, who held that nickname.

“Next steps for me, I’m not really sure,” said Goff. “I’m working with our car wash broker a little bit part time, and we’re going to wait and see what the future holds for us, I guess.”