Full steam ahead for Fix Auto Wrexham
Just seven weeks after owner Lee Hitch collected the keys to a disused business unit, the brand new Fix Auto Wrexham bodyshop has successfully completed its first full week of operation.
The site, which becomes the second bodyshop in Fix Auto Oswestry’s managing director Lee Hitch’s portfolio, joins recent new franchisees Fix Auto Blackpool & Fylde and Fix Auto Fix & Go Pontypridd in the Fix Auto network.
Lee and his team have transformed what was a bare and somewhat tired 5,000 sq ft unit in the heart of the Wrexham Industrial Estate – which is said to be the biggest of its kind in the UK – into a pristine, state-of-the-art, bodyshop, complete with a six-bay moveable spraybooth, five-bay work-ing area, and a welcoming customer services area.
The new site – which will be managed by Shane Price, a former VDA at Fix Auto Oswestry’s site in Llanymynech – will feature four technicians, two spray painters and a receptionist and has the immediate capabilities to repair a minimum of 30 vehicles a week.
Lee said, ‘To say we’re extremely pleased with what we have achieved is an understatement. Yes, there have been testing times along the way, but in reality it is everything we have planned for, and more.
‘Our original site has evolved over its 40 years of operation, and by comparison Fix Auto Wrexham has been created almost overnight. While the actual development work has been achieved really quickly, the new centre has long been at the planning stage. We had a blueprint of what we needed in order to achieve our goals and, standing here, with the work now flowing through, I be-lieve we have succeeded.’
Richard Edwards, Bodyshop director, who has been instrumental in the new site’s development, said, ‘Thanks to the design and layout of the bodyshop, coupled with the very latest systems we have brought in, Fix Auto Wrexham will have operating capabilities three times that of a more traditional bodyshop. It really is a major leap forward for the entire business.’
On a visit to the new site during its first week of operation, Fix Auto UK’s Ian Pugh said, ‘I am really impressed. I have to admit when I saw the images in our March Infofix magazine which showed Lee inside an empty building, I thought the development timescales were ambitious, but they have done themselves and the Fix Auto network proud.
‘I’m standing here in a totally immaculate bodyshop which is a hive of activity. I’d like to congrat-ulate Lee, Richard and all the team involved, and wish Fix Auto Wrexham a very successful future.’
