Who takes more busman's holidays than body shop personnel? After a long hard day at the office - body shop - owners and technicians alike go home to tinker a little more with their own cars and trucks. After all, a lot of guys and gals came into the collision repair business because they loved working on cars so much and had been doing it since they were old enough to hold a hammer. 

Trick out an ordinary Ford F-150 with accessories from Street Beat Customs (www.streetbeatcustoms.com) such as: Street Scene Urethane body kit (front bumper cover, side, skirts, roll pan), Street Scene power signal sport mirrors, Precision upper and lower billet grilles, function al Ram air cowl hood, window tint, Innovations GT spoiler Tonneau cover, TYC Euro taillights, Line of Fire read L.E.D. lighting (turn signals, brake, running lights), Grippin Billet "OE Triple Shot" chrome door handles with smoothed and painted buckets, smooth painted tailgate handle, McGuaghy's 2"-4" lowering suspension, Boyd Coddington turbine 22" wheels, and Pirelli 305/35r22 tires.

Street Beat Customs, founded in 1990 by Rick Freeman, sells all kinds of goodies - from suspension kits to cowl hoods - to personalize a vehicle inside and out. Street Beat does not sell OEM replacement parts to just put a car back together. They sell flashy, custom-made accessories to make a vehicle stand out from all the rest.

Just a few additions - such as a super sport bumper cover, a steel cowl induction hood, projector headlights and a black chrome mesh grille - can make a stock '99 Chevy pick-up look like a new Chevy Super Sport.

Marketing opportunity

Body shop owners can turn the negative experience of repairing a vehicle after an accident into a positive one for their customers by offering to personalize their cars with custom accessories rather than simply replacing stock parts. For the amount of money the insurance company pays, the customer ends up with a car he really loves and wants to show off. It's a situation where everybody wins.

Birth of a company

Freeman, a graduate of Michigan State, was on track to go into management for one of the big three automakers. However, his entrepreneurial spirit took over and led him to Phoenix, Arizona, where he tried his hand at various auto-related businesses. For a time he ran a detailing shop, then opened a pressure washing company. All the while, Freeman pursued his hobby as a car customizer. He jazzed up vehicles on the weekends, partly to support the pressure washing business. When the customizing brought in more dough than the pressure washing business, customizing took over.

As he put in a lot of hours doing customizing work, he also sold custom parts to other body shops all over the west and southwest to enhance his income. That aspect of his business grew and Street Beat Customs was born.

Street Beat is now made up of 25 teammates, as Freeman calls them. There is quite a mixture of personalities - all car nuts! And all levels of background are represented from college types who have chosen to indulge their passion for cars to young guys who came from working at the parts counter. From MBAs to high school dropouts, they are all artists when it comes to creating a custom vehicle.

Freeman is quick to point out that "this is all fun stuff. It doesn't take any more effort to paint a cowl hood than a stock hood. And it doesn't cost any more either. We love the fact that our staff members drive cool cars and park them out in front of the shop. It actually helps to draw attention to our business."