Chaparral Mercedes Club Does Vanderpool's

On Saturday, 4/23/2011, the Tucson Chaparral Chapter of the Mercedes Club met up at Vanderpool's Collision Specialists.  The Vanderpool's, Wayne (Dad) and sons, Jason and Taylor run an amazing operation. 

The plan was to all arrive at the shop by 9 AM.  I plugged the street address into Google maps, determined that the place was only a short 20-25 minutes drive to downtown from our east side home, and set off in the White Queen.  No, the White Queen has not been adopted yet.  I followed said Google directions and ended up on the north end of Euclid avenue in the vicinity of the U of A.  The directions indicated that my destination would be only about 1.4 miles from my turn off of Broadway.  Well, I traveled that distance plus up and down Euclid 3 times and did not find Vanderpool's.  A 411 mobile call and a reached someone at Vanderspool's who explained that I needed to be on the south side of Euclid not the north side and over in the industrial section of town.  Thank you, Google Maps.  A word to the wise:  When searching directions for a business, ALWAYS use the business name and not the street address. 

After arriving 15 minutes late and missing out on coffee, Wayne Vanderpool gave us the grand tour of his establishment and explained some of the finer points of collision repairs.  Having loads of experience with auto body repairs and body shops in New Jersey from the 10 years that I owned my 1997 Saab 900, I always thought the job was mostly done with mallets, new fenders, bumpers, etc. and paint.

Wayne introduced us to the process of realigning a car's frame, the tools and the years of experience involved.  He also showed us how you can take a relatively new Chevy pick-up truck chassis and put it in a 1949 Ford Woody body frame.  Pretty cool stuff.  Wayne's son, Jason, who is the paint expert, demonstrated a bit of buffing action on a 1955 Bel Air that was in for restoration work.  The Bel Air has only had one owner and a very interesting life.  It was won in a Postal Worker's raffle with a $1.00 raffle ticket back in Chicago in 1955.  It had a brief life as a hot rod and is now being turned back into a street car.  The car has a very interesting original color combination; salmon pink top with salmon pink and graphite gray two-tone side panels.  The interior is salmon pink, as well. A real looker!

Jason took us on a tour of the paint room and explained the process of paint color matching and blending.  Wow! It's more than just following the computer software mixture instructions.  You need an experienced eye, a special scale and a real cool automatic mixing system that mixes multiple cans simultaneously.

Wayne and his boys have been at this location for the last 16 years.  Wayne started the business when he was 20 years old.  It is immediately, obvious that Wayne and his sons love what they do and take real pride in their work.  Vanderpool's Collision Specialists have deep roots in the Tucson community and a solid reputation for providing top notch, quality work, and a fair and honest deal. I am adding them to my list of Tucson business referrals.

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