Harte Goes Green

Following is an article printed in the Hartford Courant on September 23, 2008 regarding Harte's new Environmentally Friendly GREEN body shop. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or comments directly. Click here to contact

Car Dealer Banks On Expanded Body Shop
By KENNETH R. GOSSELIN Courant Staff Writer
September 23, 2008
Car sales may be slumping, but Harte Auto Group is planning a major tuneup for its body shop on Hartford's auto row.Harte is investing $3 million to convert its 25,000-square-foot Suzuki dealership at the corner of Weston and Fishfry streets into an auto body repair shop that will replace its existing 1,800-square-foot shop now tucked behind Harte's Infiniti dealership.The dealer hopes the investment, including environmentally friendly technologies and paints, will help Harte carve out a larger share of the auto body business in the area as a hedge against slower sales.Greg Harte, the dealership's vice president, said the repair business doesn't ebb and flow with the economy and consumer confidence as car sales do.
"It's pretty much recession-proof," Harte said.Ford Motor Co.'s U.S. sales fell 26.5 percent in August, and sales at General Motors Corp. dropped 20.3 percent. Toyota's sales sank 9.4 percent.Harte sees market potential for the new body shop. Annual revenue for the dealership's auto body repair business is now about $700,000 a year. With the larger body shop, that revenue could increase to $3 million annually in two years, Harte said.Right now, Harte can only service three cars at a time and has just one booth for spraying paint. In the new shop, expected to open in December, 24 cars can be handled at one time with two booths for paint spraying.The new body shop will include state-of-art air filtration systems to meet tougher federal standards that go into effect in 2011. But it also will take other "green" steps, including the use of water-based paints — one of the first repair businesses in the state to do so. Water-based paints are more environmentally friendly and have been developed to last as long as their oil-based counterparts, Harte said."Using water-based paint is not a requirement of the new regulations," said Alison Davis, a spokeswoman for the federal Environmental Protection Agency. "That's going above and beyond."Harte said he believes the "green" approach to auto body repair — a departure from the traditional "dirty" perception of the business — will be popular with consumers who are environmentally conscious.

The new shop also will promote "one-stop shopping" and include a Hertz rental car desk and insurance adjusters on site. Harte said it also is designed with plenty of glass so customers can watch their car being worked on, an attempt to ease some of the uncertainty that can accompany car repairs, he said.Harte said he can also see how the repair business could benefit car sales."If we take good care of you, you might buy your next car from us," Harte said.Harte also hopes to tap into commercial vehicle repair, possible because of the 20-foot ceilings in the Suzuki building.Harte said the Suzuki dealership was chosen because its sales are more modest than other brands of cars Harte sells. A smaller, 2,500-square-foot Suzuki showroom will be built, Harte said.Contact Kenneth R. Gosselin at kgosselin@courant.com.