10/07/2026
September 4th, 2024.
It’s a sick way to wake up, and I never wish that feeling upon anybody.
Everything completely gone, all the contents, clients’ vehicles, and even some keep-sakes. Still to this day i can remember the smell coming off that building.
People would stop by with their jaws dragging on the ground, offering condolences. I felt numb. Like i didn’t know how to feel and most importantly, didn’t know what the f**k I was going to do…
Fortunately,I have an amazing team i get the privilege to work with on a daily basis. The staff didn’t even waiver, they showed up at my house the next day and said “whats the plan lando”they didn’t have to stick around, they could have left in that instant to go to another shop two feet down the road and carry on with their lives. But they BELIEVED in what we were building, they saw what our goals were and the type of environment we all contribute to. They come to work happy. In that moment i had two options, take the insurance money, shut it all down and walk away. Or stop being a f**king wimp and do what I do best and figure this s**t out… and that’s exactly what we did as a team. We figured it out.
We were back up and running in 2 weeks from the day of the fire.
Why did I decide not to walk away? I’d regret it the rest of my life. I have literally bled, cried, and sweated my absolute … off. All of that just to walk away? We have clients that rely on us, warranties, i have a staff who rely on paycheques, i have a wife and child. There is so much more to this place than just putting big stickers on cars.
I went ahead with the reconstruction phase because I was tired of working in a falling-apart building with holes in the walls and a sinking foundation. No air conditioning, if it was 30+ outside the bays were 35 and humid because of our water applications.
We have a state-of-the-art shop with fricken air conditioning and a fired-up crew ready to kick some ass and deliver to our locals. Come by and say hi more than happy to show you the shop. We’re officially open in the new space.
- Lando.
