The last plane has been disembarked and the last photo taken for the 2018 Paint & Panel Bodyshop Awards Best Shop categories. Winners for each state have been selected and will shortly be notified - the national best shop awards are still being deliberated.
It's fascinating and exhausting but always well worth the effort to see how some of the best operators in the business do business. Not one is the same as another and we encountered many innovative practices.
We'll do a round up things that caught our eye next week. Firstly thank you for everyone who took the time to show us around their business and to everyone who provided coffee and plied us with cakes. I will mostly be eating vegetable soup for the next month to shift the lard, but very appreciated particularly when tired from early starts.
Traditionally in Queensland we stick to Brisbane and the Gold Coast with the odd foray to the Sunshine Coast. This year we had some strong entries from Toowomba and Cairns - both strictly speaking 'metro' as they have a poplulation of over 100,000. However Gold Coast Collision Centre, who have been working hard on their business were keen to take part and took the trouble to make a couple of videos showing us their shop and telling us about how they run it as we weren't able to drive there this year.
The shops selected for judging were:
New South Wales
L&M Smash Repairs, Seven Hills
McCarroll's Lexus of Chatswood, Roseville
Koudsy Bodyworks, Artarmon
Autohaus Prestige, Five Dock
Barbanera's Prestige Smash, Sydenham
Macarthur Prestige Bodyshop, Smeaton Grange
Bluett Bodyworks, Gregory Hills
Andrews Collision Auto Repairs, Ingleburn
Wales Bus & Body Repairs, Smithfield
Westfield Autobody Repairs, Fairfield East
Queensland
Terry Wilkie Smash Repairs, Toowomba
Sowerby's Smash Repairs, Toowomba (who were too busy to see us after all)
Holmes Smash Repairs, Toowomba
East Coast Paint & Panel, Cairns
Willmot Smash Repair Specialist, Cairns
Eagle Smash Repairs, Eagle Farm, Brisbane
Drive Accident Solutions, Eagle Farm Brisbane
Gold Coast Collision Centre, Gold Coast (via video)
The pictures run in same order as the list above.
Thanks again to all our sponsors for making this awards program possible including Norton-Saint Gobain, MTAA, Car Craft, Glasurit, Vantage Automotive, AkzoNobel, Collision Repair Expo and Capital SMART. Big thanks to our Platinum sponsors.
