Atherton Smash Repair Specialist

 

AAMI/AP&P AUTOBODY REPAIRER OF THE YEAR REGIONAL WINNER (NEW SHOP) QLD

Customers were so impressed with the story in their local press, they drove out to Tolga, a small suburb of Atherton in Queensland’s far north, to have a look at the new panel and paint shop.

Steve and Karen West opened their new Atherton Smash Repair Specialist workshop in Tolga in October last year, and Steve has not been disappointed with the result.

There are six prep bays and five assembly days in the purpose-built shop, which turns over 10 to 15 cars a week.

Apart from Steve – a panelbeater – and Karen, there are two other panelbeaters and an apprentice beater, two painters and one in the office.

West says the shop tends to cater for more big hits, which is typical of a country repair shop.

These jobs are taken care of on either the AutoRobot or Dataliner benches.

For West, the journey to opening this modern repair facility started when he came home from school one day to find Robert Chapman knocking a dent out of his mother’s EH Holden station wagon. Later that evening he asked his mum what Chapman’s job title was, and she told him he was a panelbeater.

“That is when I told Mum that’s what I want to do,” West says.

Three years later, his father told him it was time to leave school and look for a job. He attended several interviews, including one with Ross Guthrie in the Brisbane suburb of Fortitude Valley.

West recalls Guthrie asking if panel beating was what he really want to do in life. “I said yes. He then asked him when I could start and I said ‘tomorrow’,” West says.
“My life as a panelbeater began after Easter in 1973.

“The tradesman I started working with said on my first day that he knew me but I could not remember him. Later in the day I finally remembered him as being the man who had repaired my mum’s car.”

In September 2002, the Wests and a business partner bought Estate Panel & Paint in Tolga’s Isabella St in rented premises next to where they now operate, renaming it Willmot Smash Repair Specialists Atherton.

They bought the block next door in 2006, bought out their business partner in 2007 and proceeded to construct their own purpose-built facility in 2009.

The shop uses the PPG paint system and the PPG Business Manager for estimating and production, and has a raft of equipment that makes for an efficient, modern shop.
It is an approved repairer for AAMI and RACQ.

Equipment includes Dataliner, Auto Robot 111 and Auto Robot Ezi Calipre computerised measuring system, Wielander & Schill inverter spot welder and brazer, Monarch baking oven and Monarch prep bay with infrared curing. Much of this equipment was supplied by SAPE.

This is all housed in an under-roof area of 1076m2 on a 1625m2 block of land.