Crain’s Cleveland Business 26.26 (June 27, 2005): p27. From Business and Company ASAP.

By John Booth

DCR Systems and Classic Auto Group have been neighbors for a |little more than six months. Now they’re partners, too.

DCR, a auto collision repair company, and the 24-franchise Classic group of car dealerships will transform the current DCR headquarters and model facility at 8697 Tyler Blvd. in Mentor, along with two adjacent buildings, into the co-owned Classic Auto Group-DCR Systems accident repair center. While DCR will stay in its current headquarters, two more “production cells'’ - each a fully functional repair shop - will be created from the neighboring warehouses. The project should be completed by the end of the year.

“We’re essentially bringing in everything,'’ said Michael Giarrizzo Jr., CEO and founder of DCR, which has a patent pending on its assembly-line approach to collision repair. “The equipment, the tooling, the people and the process. And we’ll operate the business inside their facility under a co-branding situation.'’

It’s exactly the sort of arrangement Mr. Giarrizzo had in mind late last year, when DCR’s $1.3 million, 10,800-square-foot shop on Tyler Boulevard was still under construction.

“The fact that they’ve chosen to partner with us and allow our expertise to complement their tremendous service offering is an incredible testimony to what we’re doing,'’ he said.

Classic officials say what they get out of the partnership is a much-needed expansion as well as the chance to work with a company whose approach they see as the future of the body shop business.

“We have a very large body shop in the center of our Mentor campus, and we’ve really outgrown the facility,'’ said Bob Ringo, chief operating officer of Classic, which owns the warehouses that will help comprise the accident repair center. “We started talking (with DCR) and really came to the same conclusion: Rather than us building another body shop, we should combine our forces.'’

The agreement marks the second dealer partnership for DCR, which also is building another of its shops in conjunction with Metro Toyota in Brook Park.