Lance's Panel & Spray

For 7 years Lance and I had been going through a severe financial stage, not knowing one day to the next how we were going to get through all our bills or even pay the lights or the rent. It was a time of sheer hell.

In Lance’s favour he had the skill of Panel beating and spray-painting, which he had abandoned for 20 years due to seeking a career in drug rehabilitation amongst our youth in South Africa of which I his wife was chosen to join him in his quest to save many kids on the streets of Cape Town. Unfortunately monetary gain was of no consequence to us at the time, however it was a necessary commodity toward our own survival and that of our two kids.

Lance and I subsequently started a small business with a natural cleaning agent without the toxicity of the many cleaning chemicals on the market. We named it Quick & Easy that could be used at home and in the workplace. Being in the drug rehabilitation industry did not give us a good acumen for starting a business. We marketed the product at flea markets on weekends and door to door business during the week whilst at night working in the field of saving our youth against the battle of drug abuse.

One fateful day Lance delivered some cleaning product to one of our long term customers at a mechanic shop. In the client's driveway was parked a beautiful old blue Ford Fairlane that had just been fully re-sprayed. Lance had seen the job was not professionally done and commented to the owner of the Fairlane that the job was poorly done on such a beautiful car, of which the client then said “Can you do a better job?” Lance had been out of the field for at least 20 years at this point but had not forgotten his trade, and boldly said “Of Course!” The client responded “Then quote me for what it will cost me to fix the bad job.” Lance had at this point not given a quote in 20 years, he hadn’t the foggiest what the actual estimate would be and just sucked out of his thumb a measly price of R2000.

That weekend Lance got to the job and spent 2 weeks re-acquainting himself on this project, whilst this mechanic's customers were no longer coming for mechanical repairs but coming to Lance for body repairs. Using all the client’s equipment, which he luckily had on the spot with his workshop, that became our first big break.

Lance single-handedly repaired all nine vehicles inclusive of the Ford Fairlane. We took this break gracefully, and rushed out and found a house with the money that we had accrued with a nice sized garage so that we could continue what had now begun. Needless to say our dear mechanic client was very pleased that he could get his shop back.

With no marketing, word soon got around about this fellow called Lance who could do body repair work. Customers were going to the mechanic’s shop looking for Lance, and the owner was supplying them with Lance’s cell number.

Work kept coming. We started work in our garage. Lance started to teach me how to do body repairs on vehicles and we soon became a husband and wife team building Lance’s Panel & Spray from our backyard. We became very busy and at this point I was marketing Lance’s Panel & Spray by placing a little flier on every car windscreen in and around Cape Town and the Atlantic Seaboard, growing ourselves from our garage into our very first shop: Lance’s Panel & Spray – 8 Clare Street, Gardens.

We were now the new kids on the block facing panel beating shops the size of giants. They looked down on us, husband and wife, with their big compliments of staff, filled out shops, and top tools. Feeling pretty intimidated, we ignored it. Instead, with heads bent, we worked day and night and every weekend on the worst cars possible—handling the dregs of the barrel. The people who could not afford the bigger shops came to us, and because our prices were so accessible, our clients bragged to everyone about how much money they saved.

With this, bigger clients started taking a chance on us, entrusting their expensive vehicles to us for repairs. The more affluent shops that saw us as small dogs of no threat were now starting to sit up—by which time it was too late. Quietly and effortlessly, we had taken over a big part of their market.

Eventually we needed to employ extra staff. My son Jarrit came home from his schooling and went straight into training to help his father run the shop. Jarrit trained for 9 years under his father, helping build the foundation of what is today International Panel Shop.