Songwriter Carole Bayer Sager (“A Groovy Kind of Love,” “Nobody Does it Better,” and the Oscar-winning “Arthur’s Theme”) always has trouble finding gifts for her husband, Bob Daly. A man who was C.E.O. of the Los Angeles Dodgers, co-C.E.O. of Warner Bros., serves as an adviser to Viacom, and runs an investment consulting company can call in anything he wants on his own. Plus, Sager says, “He is really not a lover of material things.”

But a couple of years ago Sager was surfing the Web for a Christmas gift when she saw something that would suit him perfectly: a golf cart. Not that Daly golfs.

“I called and asked the gentleman if he does any old cars,” Sager says, “because Bob loves old things.” (As a wedding present nearly 13 years ago, she gave him a rocking chair that had been owned by John F. Kennedy.)

If “does” means “imitates,” then Michael Hruby, president of LuxuryCarts.com, in Aiea, Hawaii, does indeed. His mock ’32 Roadster has a flat windshield and fenderless wheels, just like the original. It also has a fiberglass body and an AM/FM cassette deck. And, of course, an electric motor capable of going only 25 miles per hour—downhill—instead of a 65-horsepower V-8 engine. Hruby happened to have one in stock and delivered it to Sager’s Bel Air home; she stashed it in the one space she knew Daly wouldn’t enter—the garage. “Christmas morning I drove it up with a big bow on it,” she says. “He loved it.”

If a 1930s hot rod isn’t your thing, customizers such as LuxuryCarts.com and Advanced Electric Vehicle Center in San Marcos, California, can convert a stock cart into another hot ride that’s still light enough to be golf-course legal: On most courses you can cruise from the first hole to the 19th without angering the groundskeeper or violating club rules. LuxuryCarts.com makes Jeep look-alikes, tiny Hummers, even miniature ’57 Chevys (view slideshow).

A custom cart costs about as much as a new car: The ’32 Roadster retails for $25,000, compared with $30,000 to $35,000 for a new 2008 Lexus IS 250 (and $5,000 for a plain old golf cart). Hruby’s company can build from scratch a cart in any body style for $50,000.

The custom carts are not confined to golf courses. Hruby estimates that only 25 percent of his customers use theirs for golf; the other 75 percent tool around their estates. In fact, that’s exactly what Dodger David Wells and Sandra Bullock and her husband, Jesse James, do with theirs. Same goes for record exec Tommy Mottola, Will Smith, the Sultan of Brunei, and Jeff Clark, president and C.E.O. of Anthony International, a maker of glass doors.

“The only thing we can’t make them is street legal,” says George Salinas, president of A.E.V.C. (though Sager does admit to borrowing her husband’s for jaunts to the Bel-Air Country Club, which is right down the street.) And there are times when the manufacturers can’t make them course legal either; each country club has its own requirements for weight and size. In other words, no stretch-limo carts, even on a public course.

Yet despite their resemblance to a Mustang or a Hummer or a little deuce coupe, appearances are only skin deep. Top speed reaches between 12 and 18 miles per hour, and you’re not likely to screech the tires because the ride is battery powered. That was a selling point to Sager. “It doesn’t make a lot of noise or burn fuel,” she says.    

And though hers was already ready, that was the exception. Usually the carts are built to order, which means an array of options is available. Customers may request air-conditioning, fancy wheels, custom leather seats, tricked-out radios, cameras (to see what’s behind you instead of looking over your shoulder), DVD players, and even air bags. Assembly time ranges anywhere from a few weeks up to 150 days.

“The only thing he couldn’t do in time was leather seats,” Sager says, though Hruby offered to install them after Christmas.

Despite current rocky economic conditions, business is good for these golf-cart customizers. “Sales are up over the same period last year,” says Hruby. “Our clients have enough money to weather these times.”