YesterWreck – The Column #10: The Collision Repair Industry – 1980 – 1989  

Editor's Note: This is the 10th in a FenderBender-exclusive series, excerpted from Ledoux’s book, YesterWreck: The History of the Collision Repair Industry in America, available here. Find the rest of the excerpted series here. 

Overview  

In the 1980s, it seemed everything was changing, socially, and technologically, and at blinding speed. In August 1981, IBM introduced the personal computer. It sold for $1,565. In Nov. 1985, the first version of Microsoft’s Windows operating system was released. And on March 11, 1989, we were introduced to the World Wide Web.  

The earliest part of the decade would also mark one of the most significant changes in the automotive business and certainly in the collision repair world – the change from body-on-frame auto construction to a unibody model. Collision repair would never be the same. 

It was also a time when the industry would “come of age,” so to speak. Since 1945, the industry had been a mass of small, family-run body shops that were not tied together in any way for any purpose. In fact, many fought with each other. The 1980s would see shops joining together and working for a common good. 

The Industry Enters “Puberty”  

In 1980, depending on the source, there were an estimated 80,000 to 85,000 body shops in the U.S. In the spring of 1984, a more authoritative number was ascertained. Compiled from the yellow pages of 4,800 telephone directories covering every city and town in the United States, American Business Directories, Inc. released a comprehensive directory of every body shop in America. Their official number of shops – 59,768. In the spring of 1987, according to an ad for Sharpe Spray Guns, there were 55,000 paint shops in America. 

Whichever number you believe, it had been growing since the end of WWII and it was as high as it would ever get. Shops who would not or could not keep pace began to go by the wayside. Vehicle building technology had remained virtually unchanged since the 1940s. Before the days of intrusive government regulations, and with few tools and few pieces of relatively inexpensive pieces of equipment to buy, it was easy to get into the collision repair business. That was all about to change. If the time prior to 1979 could be considered the industry’s childhood, it was about to go into a fast-paced puberty. 

The Advent of the Unibody  

Longtime industry veteran Bruce Cooley spent years with paint companies Sherwin-Williams and DuPont, retiring in 2013. Of the collision industry, Cooley noted in March 2015, “The biggest single change to the collision industry did not happen overnight, but over time starting at around the early 1980’s. That was the birth of the unibody, and a time when auto manufacturers started building cars better so they would last longer. That changed everything. In the 1960s and 1970s, many shops were called body and paint shops because they performed body work but did a fair amount of repaints and cosmetic work because OE finishes didn’t last. A lot of what shops did back then was repainting cars and fixing rust. Cars only lasted three to four years because they just rusted through. At four years old, the engine had 50,000 miles on it and was tired and the body was rusted through – it was time for a new car. Shops were fixing cars that were relatively lightly damaged. It didn’t take much to total a car back then. That all changed with higher-grade steel and new design. It revolutionized how we repaired cars.” 

Spray Booths Become More Important  

Many industry people think the early 1980s was the birth of the modern body shop due not only to the advent of the unibody vehicle, but because it was also the point where the downdraft spray booth began to really catch traction thanks to the introduction of clearcoats and the need for a dirt-free finish. Shop owners were realizing that time saved in buffing out a dirty finish covered with overspray was money in the bank.  

Plastics Prevail  

In the fall of 1987, an article noted that vehicle designers were using more and more plastics, also referred to as “composite materials,” in cars of the day, and certainly cars of the future. The article cites, “According to a chart published by the Institute of Scrap Iron and Steel, the use of plastics in the average Ford car has more than doubled since 1975 – from 4 percent of the car’s total weight to eight-point five percent of the total in 1985.” In an unrelated article appearing near the end of 1989, a chart provided by BASF Corp. shows that automotive use of plastics went from about 50 pounds per car in 1970 to an estimated average of about 300 pounds in 1990. 

The Birth of Computers  

The decade of the 1980s will be remembered for other dramatic changes as well. Perhaps the most profound is the emergence of the personal computer, and computerization in general, and how it affected the lives of practically everyone on the planet – the collision industry included. More specifically, 1982 will be marked as the beginning of the collision industry’s “Information Age” with the advent of electronic estimating systems, shop data management systems, and trade publications. 

Associations Multiply  

As the industry was forced to mature, shop owners realized they needed support to see their way through the massive changes. It seems like every month another state or regional auto body association was forming, or having their first annual show or conference. From the South Dakota Auto Body Association to the North Jersey Auto Body Association, everyone was getting into the game. Despite the proliferation of associations by forward-thinking individuals, not every shop owner was joining up. An open letter appearing in a trade magazine to all body shop owners asked, “…if there was 58,000 body shops in the U.S., and only 2,500 were members of the Automotive Service Councils, 1,400 were members of the Independent Automotive Service Association, and in its first 120 days, 225 were members of the Society of Collision Repair Specialists, then where were the rest of the shops and had they not joined any industry association?” The letter was written and signed by John Loftus, then-President of SCRS.  

Author’s Note: I have not been active in the collision industry for almost eight years. But when I left in September 2017, the cry to have shops join industry organizations hadn’t changed much. 

Excerpted from Ledoux’s book, YesterWreck: The History of the Collision Repair Industry in America, available here.