Northeast Edition New York New Jersey Pennsylvania Delaware
30
YEARS
www.autobodynews.com
State Farm’s PartsTrader Program Encounters Significant Opposition, Not Just From its DRPs State Farm’s forced implementation of its PartsTrader e-bidding process within its Select Service Program shops has ignited a firestorm of criticism from the industry, not just from its own DRPs. Usage of the PartsTrader software, developed in New Zealand, has been required by the insurer in several test markets nationwide, including Tucson, AZ, and Birmingham, AL, however several sources have reported shops dropping the Select Service Program as a result, up to 40% in some markets. The Alliance of Automotive Service Providers (AASP), the Society for Collision Repair Specialists (SCRS), and the Automotive Service Association (ASA) as and numerous independent industry observers have come out with strong statements cautioning their members against State Farm’s bidding process for parts procurement.
AASP called it “an unprecedented and uninvited intrusion into the business of collision repair.” The AASP released the following statement, which reads in part: “Despite posturing from the largest national insurance carrier on what it believes to be positive attributes of the program, collision repair facilities, parts suppliers, parts manufacturers and interested parties around the country have been consistent in their perception that this type of activity will ultimately harm their businesses and the customers they serve. “Collision repairers are in the business of selling parts, labor and materials at a retail level. Each of these revenue sources contributes to the overall success of the roughly 35,000 small businesses across the nation, allowing the business to provide employment opportunities to individuals within their community and invest in the necessary
REFINISH PAINT &
Twenty Million Dollar Art Collection Has Been Held in Long Island Body Shop for Years Man Ray may never have done any automotive art or be as well known in the collision repair community as our best liked airbrush artists or custom painters, but he has been called one of the most influential artists of the 20th century and his photographs, paintings, and drawings are highly sought-after in the international art markets. Man Ray was a ground-breaking American artist and experimental photographer, perhaps best known for his X-ray-style “rayographs” made with his own innovative photo-darkroom techniques, but without cameras. He spent much of his life in Paris and was a colleague of Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí. Man Ray died more than thirty years ago, but much of his work can be found carefully archived in a custom interiors shop called AutoMat in Hicksville on
See PartsTrader, Page 49
IA L SP E C T ISSUE PAIN
VOL. 2 ISSUE 3 JUNE 2012
of 3 issues
OGIES TECHNOL
New York’s Long Island. The shop is owned by Eric Browner and operated by his family. The shop’s auto interior -oriented showroom would not be mis-
taken for a museum and gives little clue to the art treasures housed nearby, which is lined with upholstered seat covers, it is the headquarters of the Man Ray Trust, which contains about 4,500 works from Eric Browner, brother the artist’s estate. of Man Ray’s widow, Now, the collecJuliet, has housed tion is being prithe Man Ray Trust in vately shopped to his Hicksville shop. museums. Man Ray’s art wound up in Long Island because the artist’s late wife, Juliet, set up the original trust before she passed away in 1991. Since her death everything has been passed down to her brother, Eric and his extended family, which owns the custom upholstery shop. The family knew very little about Man Ray but is now preparing to transfer ownership to a museum, with an expected valuation of about $20 million. Eric Browner, now 86 years old, manages 15,000 copyrights for the artist and oversees licensing contracts worth roughly $300,000 a year. Mr. Browner, who lives in Florida, told media sources that he’s been feeling family pressure lately to sell the archive before he dies. The trust’s proceeds are to be split among about a dozen heirs.
Summit Software’s President and Head Sherpa Frank Terlep talks with Autobody News about the state of Digital Media for the Collision Industry
by Melanie Anderson see p. 40
Change Service Requested
P.O. BOX 1516, CARLSBAD, CA 92018
Presorted Standard US Postage PAID Ontario, Ca. Permit No. 1