Capricorn's collision journey

If it weren’t for collision repair workshops, Capricorn might never have become what it is today.

Founded by a group of service station owners in 1974, our cooperative was initially focused on service station businesses, before expanding to include independent mechanical workshops.

But by 1991, Capricorn had an existential crisis: It needed to grow to survive. Encouraged by motor trades associations across Australia, the Capricorn board announced the formation of its Panel and Paint Division. In January 1992, the cooperative put veteran panel beater and Sales Manager Bob Jenkinson in charge of coordinating this new push. Bob was convinced Capricorn could achieve for panel workshops what it had already done for the mechanical side of the industry. Panel workshop owners and suppliers believed it, too. They signed up in droves. It had taken Capricorn 15 years to reach 1,000 Members. It reached 2,000 in just three years. A year later, in September 1993, it had 3,000. By 1995, Capricorn’s Panel and Paint Division was in every state—and had more than 450 collision-based Members on the books.

As former Capricorn Group Business Manager, Steve Barraclough, said of Capricorn’s expansion into the panel industry (in an interview in 2004, marking Capricorn’s thirtieth anniversary celebrations): “If the board had not made that decision, we would not have been here today. If we had stayed focused only on service stations, we would have been dead in the water.”

Jump forward twenty years, and what we now call “collision repair” Members are still a vital part of Capricorn’s business. They make up a significant percentage of the cooperative’s 29,000 strong membership and are responsible for 10 per cent of Trade Account purchases ($385 million in 2023/24, from the $3.9 billion total).

Dane Tuesley, Capricorn’s Collision Area Manager for Queensland, said the results showed the value the cooperative brought to collision Members’ businesses. He looks after 330 Members in that state who turn to Capricorn’s Preferred Suppliers for everything from paint to equipment to wrecker’s parts.

“A lot of our Members are family run workshops— independent, smaller workshops—so having a single Trade Account just makes their life easier,” he said.

“For Capricorn, I know there’s a lot of emphasis on what collision’s doing, making sure our Members have got access to a wide variety of different Preferred Suppliers, and of course the financing, risk services, and our other offerings.”

National Collision Manager Mark Lockwood said Capricorn was committed to helping collision Members grow their businesses with access to equipment financing and technology, including advanced diagnostics through a joint venture with Repairify.

“The job of collision repairers is getting more complicated every day as vehicles get more technical, with the amount of cameras and sensors expanding all the time,” he said. “It’s not just ‘pull a bumper off, put a bumper on’; they have to calibrate the cars. So, access to equipment financing through Capricorn has been a game changer, especially for newer Members.”

“Access to Repairify means Members can also do calibration in-house, rather than sending it to an offsite location.”

Creating a Panel and Paint Division thirty years ago helped Capricorn achieve its potential. Now, Capricorn works every single day to help collision Members achieve their potential, too.