What these shop jockeys can’t say about collision repair might not be worth hearing.
The fact is a few came up with it first, taught others, forgot some, learned more, tweaked bits, adapted the rest, and have gone back to the well so often, they built a little gazebo nearby to keep out of the sun while passing along some wisdom.
Some sweet serendipity set Ron Reichen, Kye Yeung and the Crozat and Rich families in the Western U.S. As post-WWII America headed for the coast like their pioneer forebears, they likely drove. That meant cars, collisions and collision repair.
These guys have actual actionable advice, learned over a long time.
If You Have to Ask…
Reichen knows the exact date he began: March 31, 1975. Precision Body & Paint, his Oregon MSO, comprises five shops and a calibration center.
Reichen’s Swiss dairy farmer parents had a forge on their property, in which Reichen repaired farm equipment and found a passion in molecular structure engineering. He built gliders as a teen and peppers conversations with phrases like “energy transfer.”
“I loved the science of” collision repair, Reichen said, and German vehicles, because of course.
Entwined with those experiences were expectations of excellence from the Greatest Generation.
“You never asked if it was good enough because if you have to ask, it’s not,” Reichen said.
The formula is “defined process, predictable outcome,” he said. Excellence is the aim amid all change: tooling, repair, paint, ADAS.
Mentoring staff and customer interactions are part of the process-outcome problem-solving.
Setting expectations on timelines, discussing methodology, validating concerns and asking customers questions, to the level of “Did you spill a mocha?” during the crash, so the carpet “doesn’t smell like spoiled yogurt three days later,” Reichen said.
“We never talk about price, because we’ve talked about the process,” he said. “The vehicle sets the price.”
50 More Years
Reichen called Yeung “one of my closest friends.”
Yeung’s European Motor Car Works is in Southern California. He started in 1975 at age 20 when his dad said to get the work out of the garage, which “I’d destroyed,” Yeung said.
Ron Reichen, center, and Kye Yeung, right, along with Bruce Halcro, left, all received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Collision Repair Specialists during the 2024 SEMA Show.
Through five decades, this thread: Do it first. Do it before you do it. Be doing it as you realize you should.
Yeung was a British émigré from Hong Kong, under “the British vehicle fascination, loyal to the heritage.” During a four-semester track in collision repair to work on his own car, the teacher kept tasking him on other projects.
“I thought he didn’t like me,” Yeung said, so he quit. Later, Yeung realized he’d found a mentor -- “someone who thinks I’m good at something.”
Yeung focused on British cars as “there were no competitors: they leaked oil, never ran.” But he loved them. The passion was already there.
Halfway to now, Aston Martin introduced its aluminum chassis, bonded carbon panel Vanquish, and realized it needed to certify its repair shops.
Once again, Yeung was already preparing, without realizing it: building a new location, ground-up, which he was able to show carmaker execs, who’d shown up with very specific criteria for size and signage, riding in a black limo and looking, he said, like characters from “The Matrix.”
Now his daughters, son-in-law and grandson work there, already preparing for the next new thing.
“The legacy will continue with them,” Yeung said.
50 More Shops
“My dad did a couple cool things,” said Patrick Crozat, who co-owns G&C Auto Body in Northern California with brothers Shawn and Josh. Dad Gene Crozat cofounded it in 1972 with Leo Gassel. It’s grown to nearly 50 stores.
Patrick Crozat with his dad's slogan on the wall at G&C Auto Body.
In Gene’s day, ads meant radio and billboards. Now Google’s a global billboard for shop promotion. Gene’s “distinct voice” resonated with customers, who still remember it to Patrick.
Gene ran a fleet of rentals, as shops still do. One likely exception for the early days: since cars wore the G&C logo, “they were a sales tool, so at times he didn’t charge for it.” Today this might be a car wrap.
A third creative move: two weeks before Christmas each year, Gene sent a gaggle of kids in Santa hats and red sweatshirts into the streets to put coins in expired parking meters, leaving G&C materials on the windshield.
One more tweak, on the business chestnut, “Don’t take it personal; it’s just business.”
“My dad always said, ‘Business is personal. Good business is real personal,’” Patrick said.
Speaking of Personal
Where did Gene start? Rich’s Auto Body, also in NorCal. Patrick recently saw the original paint booth his dad used.
Rich’s started at 10,000 square feet, not bad in 1964. It’s now six times that, with two dozen employees.
Joe Rich, the third generation to run it, said his grandfather, Leonard Rich Jr., worked in a Pennsylvania parts store. Leonard Rich Sr. worked in a steel mill. Father and son came west together to begin body work.
Joe once met his grandfather’s first customer from 1964, when he came with his daughter for work on her car.
The biggest lesson he learned from his granddad, who died last year, is the No. 1 rule -- in hospitality.
Hohmeier Auto Body has been operated by the same family in St. Louis for 101 years, but is on the market now.
Dating to César Ritz in the early 1900s, hoteliers learned never to say the word “no.” Situations require finesse -- ensure comfort, inform on process, know timelines -- but the point is the goal.
“It’s our job to make it happen,” Joe said of collision work. “We need to turn that negative into a positive.”
Leonard Rich “was there every day, and among the first – 5 a.m., 6 a.m. -- to arrive and the last to leave,” Joe said. “He did estimates, ran the tow truck, was a painter. I don’t think they make guys like that anymore.”
Longest Continuously Running Collision Center in America?
Before settling on the Pacific Coast, Autobody News sought out shops in Colorado, Arizona, in the Midwest, Iowa and Ohio. Birthdates varied from 1931 to 1950. Some couldn’t be found, reached or confirmed. One that G&C has bought in California is pushing 70.
Then there’s one where the family’s been at it since Calvin Coolidge.
Hohmeier Auto Body in St. Louis, MO, is 100 years old, as of last fall. “101 years, now,” said owner Bob Hohmeier.
Time flies.
The founders “started out selling used cars, and fixed them up to sell them,” four generations ago.
Alas, long-time operators are a minority, and Hohmeier is the last of his line. The shop is for sale.
Paul Hughes