Page 54 - Australian Paint & Panel Nov-Dec 2020
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BEST LARGE SHOP – NEW SOUTH WALES
                             PAINT&PANEL NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2020
PARRAMATTA SMASH REPAIRS
                     F
 IT’S BEEN FOUR YEARS SINCE WE LAST VISITED PARRAMATTA SMASH REPAIRS WHEN THEY WERE JUST BEGINNING
A WORKSHOP OVERHAUL. YOU CAN TAKE IT FIRST-HAND THAT THE CHANGE HAS BEEN UTTERLY TRANSFORMATIONAL.
IRST OPENED IN 1966, PAR-
ramatta Smash Repairs was founded by manager Ryan
Simpson’s grandfather Cec.
Ryan is the first generation that didn’t go into the trade: “They needed help in the office, so they put me straight in that.” However a love of cars is in the Simpson DNA and as well as wanting to repair them correctly through the business, Ryan enjoys pushing them to their limits on the race track.
This prestige repair business has a giant footprint and is one of the larg- est independently owned shops we’ve come across. You’ll make your 10,000 steps a day no problem traversing the site and Ryan certainly doesn’t have to watch his waistline. And yet still it wasn’t big enough for their needs. “We probably have about 110 cars parked in here at the moment, but at our peak times we’re closer to 180,” says Simpson.
Despite a car park to rival that of su- permarkets and a positive village of outhouses they decided to expand. This was in addition to refurbishing the panel shop and installing a brand new Lowbake paint room. The family bought an adjacent building and has turned it into a Mercedes-Benz exclu- sive panel shop.
It was an old tyre shop next door, which eventually came up for sale. While the purchase looked convenient, it turned out to be a little more trouble than they bargained for.
“So, we bought it, and then the ten- ants set fire to it,” Simpson explains.
Being an old tyre shop - next door to a warehouse filled with paint - things didn’t go well.
“They had sixteen fire trucks there battling it. It did actually damage part of the workshop, the roof, but thankfully it didn’t set fire to anything else.
“It then took about two years through council to get what we wanted to do there,” says Simpson.
    ABOVE: Impactful exterior for this third generation luxury car repairer.
   















































































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