Jerry Dalton‘s time in the body shop started with a few wrecked cars and the idea of getting them back on the road. It was 1991, he was in his late 20s and doing paint work on Sea Ray boats when he started buying up damaged Hondas and getting them back on the road with new parts.
“We repaired and sold several Hondas, and I had a few people helping me. We built up a customer base, so to speak. These people started making claims,” he said Autobody News“They came back. I was like a body shop.”
Dalton quickly developed from a “similar” body shop to a real collision repair business and a few years later he was already taking on insurance-funded work. He opened Dalton CollisionThe original location of, which still thrives today, is in Blaine, Tennessee.
The total area of his business has grown from 150 square meters in one location to 3,500 square meters, which are now spread over two stores, with another 550 square meters expected to be added shortly.
Growth decisions
Dalton noticed a change in auto body repair in the early 1990s, when automakers began installing airbags and safety became a priority.
At the Knoxville location, the cars wait for body work.
Direct repair relationships with insurance companies began to impact the shop’s work. Dalton was hesitant at first, but the DRP work became successful and dealer referrals also multiplied.
Growth has evolved from organic to more targeted over the years: In 2018, Dalton Collision opened in the Knoxville/Powell area. The corporate headquarters look gives it a sleek impression from the street. The decision was based on the obvious success of the original location, backed up by customer inquiries and market research on the new area.
“We got as big as we could with the market sales we were actually getting,” Dalton said of the Blaine location, which is about 30 minutes outside of Knoxville, Tennessee’s third-largest city. “We kind of hit a plateau there. I had a really good base of customers in the Knoxville area and surrounding counties. A lot of people were driving to us after car accidents, even though they were far away.”
Customers kept telling Dalton they wished he would open in Knoxville. He started thinking about how to expand, looking at existing stores and crunching the numbers for new construction. Eventually, the perfect location became available. It was an existing building – 24,000 square feet – and Dalton had the option of a 20-year lease with right of first refusal.
Through research, he found that there was plenty of annual revenue from accident repairs in the area, but there were fewer than 10 garages there. He took the plunge.
“It was a good market and we created it,” he said.
Dealing with the pandemic
The number of customers and manufacturer certifications multiplied, and then, a few years later, the pandemic hit. Like most businesses, Dalton Collision had to pivot in the face of complications. There was a slowdown at first, but customers came back relatively quickly as the state reopened comparatively quickly.
“We started feeling the impact in April (2020). May was the worst month. June was really bad. But fortunately for us, the state of Tennessee opened back up in July and by July things were really good,” Dalton recalled.
The cars came in, but the shop, like everywhere else, couldn’t get parts, so there was a backlog. Still, Dalton Collision was able to keep all of its employees and subsidize their salaries with government employee retention loans.
The employees used the downtime to conduct training.
“We did every kind of online training we could,” Dalton said. “We continued our I-CAR training. We got manufacturer certifications. Some of the paint companies offered training on parts and blueprints.”
Next Steps
With inventory levels returning to normal across the industry, both shops are currently operating at full capacity. The Knoxville location, which Dalton purchased in 2021, will soon be expanding by 550 square feet to accommodate a calibration center. The shops’ numerous manufacturer certifications – currently more than 17 OEM certifications, some in process – are increasingly geared toward the emerging electric vehicle market, Dalton said.
This is a far cry from buying and selling broken Hondas. Over the years, word of mouth and repeat customers have been the company’s biggest growth drivers. Treating each other with respect, working well with various insurance companies and getting the cars back into service as quickly as possible have contributed a lot to gaining repeat customers.
“We learned early on that you have to be respectful, kind and polite, no matter whose car you’re fixing and who’s paying the bill,” Dalton said. “That seems to do a lot more than just ‘pay me.'”
