Gary Ledoux is a freelance writer with 48 years in the automotive industry.
He can be reached at mayorclum@yahoo.com
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At the dawn of the 1980s, the collision repair industry was going through some fundamental changes with the advent of business computers, cars with unibody construction, advances in paint technology, repair technology and the introduction of aftermarket parts.
The 1970s were quickly fading into the rear-view mirror and the 1980s were approaching with alarming speed.
From the start of the “modern” collision shop in the late 1940s up through the 1970s, body shops, as a business, were fairly crude by most standards.
Those who have been in the collision industry for a long time remember the 1980s as the advent of automotive unibody construction.
It seemed like we had just gotten over the decline of the hippie movement, and the rise and fall of disco and a TV actor being president of the U.S.
In 1989, Mark Gibson started painting Peterbilt hoods in his father’s garage - an inauspicious beginning to what would later become one of the premier heavy-duty truck body shops in the country; Diversified Body and Paint Shop located in Denver.
During the 2nd annual HD Repair Forum event held in Fort Worth, Texas, in March 2019, John Spoto, National Heavy Duty Truck Commercial Fleet manager for the 3M Company gave a fascinating presentation on the effects of a crash and how so much can happen in a very short amount of time.
Fifty years ago this month, September 1969, I took my first job in the automotive industry.
The collision industry went through many changes during the 1970s.
Auto body associations had been around since the 1940s.
Most people in the auto collision industry agree that the collision industry was born around 1946.
The American fleet had grown exponentially by the 1970s.