CSF Race

A Partnership, Not a Project

Most client relationships have a start and an end. CSF Race is different. We started working together over a decade ago when they needed more than a template could offer, and we’ve been building alongside them ever since.

CSF Race manufactures high-performance cooling systems for everything from weekend track cars to professional racing teams. They’ve been in the cooling business for nearly 80 years, starting as a small radiator repair shop and growing into a global supplier. When they came to us, their online store needed to match the reputation they’d spent generations building.

The Custom Shopify Theme

We designed and developed a fully custom Shopify theme tailored to how CSF Race actually sells. Their customers shop by vehicle fitment, not by browsing a generic catalog. So we built a year/make/model search that sits front and center, letting buyers find exactly what fits their car without scrolling through pages of products that don’t apply.

Product pages were built to handle the technical depth their customers expect. Specifications, fitment data, finish options, and compatibility notes all have dedicated space without the page feeling cluttered. The red and black color palette ties directly to their racing heritage and carries through every page consistently.

Brand Guidelines

CSF Race had strong brand instincts but nothing documented. We put together a comprehensive brand guide covering logo usage, color palette, typography, photography direction, and tone of voice. This gave their team and any outside partners a single reference point to keep everything on-brand, whether it’s a trade show banner or an Instagram post.

The guide has held up well over the years. Their marketing looks consistent across every channel, which matters when you’re selling to both grassroots enthusiasts and professional race teams.

Custom Product Solutions

Over the years we’ve developed several custom tools for the store. The fitment search was just the beginning. We’ve built custom collection pages that group products by application, dealer and distributor locator tools, and inquiry forms for their private label manufacturing side.

Each one was built to slot into the existing theme cleanly. No bolt-on plugins that break with every Shopify update. Just purpose-built solutions that work.

Newsletter Templates

We also handle their email marketing through Mailchimp. We built a set of branded newsletter templates that their team can populate and send without worrying about things going off-brand. Product launches, dealer announcements, race event recaps - it all goes out looking consistent with the rest of their marketing. The templates are built to render properly across email clients, which anyone who’s done HTML email knows is its own kind of challenge.

Keeping Things Current

A decade is a long time in e-commerce. Shopify has changed significantly since we started, and so has how people shop online. We handle ongoing maintenance, performance optimization, and periodic design refreshes to keep the store competitive. When Shopify rolls out new features or deprecates old ones, we’re on it before it becomes a problem.

CSF Race has expanded their product line considerably over the years, including moving into EV cooling solutions. Every new product category gets integrated into the existing system without the store feeling like it’s been patched together over time.

Where Things Are

The store runs reliably, the brand looks consistent everywhere, and the team can manage their day-to-day catalog updates without needing us for every little thing. When they do need something new built, we know the codebase inside and out because we wrote it. That’s the upside of a long-term partnership versus starting fresh with a new agency every few years.