Auto Body Repair
The body repair process starts out with our experienced techs and if needed the car will go on our uni-body frame rack with laser measuring system.
After the body repair process, we begin the refinish process. After a multi–step preparation process, your vehicle is ready for the final finish. High–tech paint equipment and quality products help ensure a factory–like finish. Our highly trained painters are masters in color matching and paint application techniques.
After the process is done, our detail techs take over and clean and detail the vehicle for final inspection and delivery. We take pride in our services and even more pride in giving your car back in pre-accident condition.
About
For this family business, it’s all in the details and it’s all about a real appreciation for fine work. This car, a 1960 Continental Mark V, belonged to Bill Booden. Bill and his son, Randy, are the guys who started B&B Collision 37 years ago. The car? It’s the largest American production automobile ever built; only 1,461 were made. Bumper to bumper, it’s 229 inches long and weighs 5,200 pounds.
“Drive-in owners hated that car,” says Randy, who now runs B&B Collision as the general manager. Randy’s sister, Wendy Tomassi, the office manager, says “You could pile 10 people in the trunk of that car if you wanted to.”
“My dad was 49 when he started this business,” Wendy says. “He’d been working for dealerships all the time before that, and then finally figured, ‘If we’re going to have this kind of headache, we might as well have our own business.’ So he handed the headache down to us. Randy had started the business with him — I joined them about a year later.”
Nobody at B&B Collision really thinks their job is a headache. It’s clear they get a kick out of taking a car that’s been badly wrinkled in an accident and, by paying careful attention to all the small details and working on it as if it were their own, returning the car to the owner as though the problem had never happened. “We just finished a Taurus for a woman. The car only had 7,000 miles on it – it was new. She was thrilled with the work and said she never would have known it’d been in an accident,” Wendy said.
There are pictures everywhere of favorite racing cars. Randy is restoring a 1934 two-door Plymouth sedan from the frame up.
At work, Wendy says they pull together and run B&B Collision pretty much by one rule, verbalized by her brother. “It’s a family business – that’s important,” Randy says. “We want to treat you as we want to be treated.”
“We consider ourselves a full-service collision repair facility. People always have a choice when they get in an accident – take it to the dealer or come to an independent body shop like ours. There are a lot of people who swear by the dealer, but there also just as many people who just don’t want anything to do with the dealer,” Randy says.
Wendy points out their techs are state certified – something that wasn’t always a requirement. Their staff keeps up with the latest certifications and works on the principle that every detail counts.
“That, and being good to customers,” Nick says. “We believe in being knowledgeable, honest and straightforward with people. They appreciate that.”
In the end, it can all be blamed on Randy Booden’s brother, Wayne. Wayne Booden got Randy hooked on Chryslers when he bought a 1969 GTX. “He was always into Mopar,” says Randy, of B & B Collision in Royal Oak. They used to drag race at Detroit Drag way in 1970, and they used to cruise Woodward.
It’s come to this: tearing down, to the frame, and completely updating a 1934 Plymouth two-door sedan. “My brother has a 1934 Plymouth four-door sedan,” Randy says. “But he never finishes working on one. Somebody always buys them before he’s done.”
Nobody’s buying Randy’s Plymouth.
He already went through that with his family once, and once was enough. “In 1981 or ’82, I went looking for a car (to race). I wanted a 1969 GTX. It took me a year to find it.” He raced it before and after marrying his wife.
After that, building a family took precedence over building the GTX. Rather than race it, Randy would take the GTX to shows, drive it around the neighborhood, and park it in front of his business.
“Then one day I was getting ready to leave for vacation, and it was parked out front (at work), and this guy walked in and offered me a lot of money that I couldn’t refuse,” Randy said. Randy figured since he wasn’t racing the car anymore, and his wife wasn’t driving the car as much as she used to, he wasn’t going to turn down this guy’s offer. So, Randy called his wife and asked her to get the title out because he was going to sell the car.
“She said ‘No, you’re not.’ And I said ‘Yes, I am.’ And she said ‘No, you can’t,’ and I said, ‘Yes, I can,’ and this went on and on. She couldn’t believe it. But finally, we decided to do it.”
The guy followed Randy home and wrote him a check. “My wife only had one request of the guy – she said, ‘You’ve got to do a burnout as you leave.’ and he did.”
“My son, Wes, wouldn’t even come outside to see the car go. He was crying his eyes out. The next day we left on a two-week vacation and they didn’t talk to me for the first week.”
When Randy got back, he knew what he had to do.
“I knew where this car was,” Randy said, referring to the ’34 Plymouth. “I’d tried to buy it a year and a half before, but the guy didn’t want to sell it.” This time, Randy bought it on the spot. What’s he doing to it?
Services
We feel we can conquer almost any feat in this industry. In keeping with this mission, we offer a wide variety of services. No job is too big or small, as we treat each project with the same meticulous attention to detail.
If you have more specific service-related questions, please contact us at 248-543-2929. We’d love to hear from you. If this is not convenient for you, we invite you to complete the form on our contact page and then we’ll be able to call or email you with the information you’ve requested. We strive to understand and exceed your expectations.