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The company slogan may be ‘we meet by accident’, but the Vehicle Workshop is all about attention to detail.
From small beginnings over a decade ago, Andy Osborne's business has grown steadily and despite the disruption this year is continuing to expand.
He told Express about his love of his work, art and giving back to the island he calls home...
When we arranged to speak to Andy Osborne for this article, we weren't expecting to start our conversation talking about art. From the outside, the Vehicle Workshop may look like just another large unit at St. Peter’s Technical Park.
But, among the cars waiting their turn for a re-spray or damage repair is an immaculately restored VW camper and, as we headed upstairs for our chat, it was hard not to notice the pair of Mark Chatel prints. You may have seen them for sale over the years in Seedee Jons.
They usually feature characters or scenes from well-known sci-fi films that have mysteriously landed in Jersey. Anne Port doesn’t come out well after a visit from Godzilla, and in one of Andy’s pictures, Han Solo is telling Chewie about his ‘bad feeling’ as they leave the Millennium Falcon and head towards the terminal building at Jersey Airport.
Pictured: Andy owns the Vehicle Workshop.
“I love the twist on it,” he told me. “And the way it’s Jersey. These were presents from people who know me and know my style because the one thing I do love is paintings. I love other people’s art and I also paint myself when I get the chance to. I was a member of an art guild.”
That might sound an unusual hobby for someone more associated with beating car panels back into shape, but it started when a colleague sent him a postcard from Australia which he went on to replicate during his breaks working for a large car dealership. He got the bug and Oz, as he is also known, has sold most of the 100 or so canvases he’s painted. Not bad for someone who says he could barely draw stick men at school.
And it’s not just art he collects. There are the VW campers proudly parked outside the business, but also a decommissioned yellow JT phone box which Andy successfully bid for in the radio auction for last year’s Joint Charities Christmas Appeal. It’s remained in the workshop since it was delivered last December, perhaps his next project when he’s decided what he’ll use it for.
Pictured: “Every time I look at it, it makes me smile."
Owning and running a busy workshop that paints and re-sprays vehicles takes up most of his time and energy, and it’s all about a total focus on detail. That, he says, has helped develop his love of art and artwork, because it’s no longer a job where any amount of filler will do, it’s about beating the panel back out, smoothing out the dent or scratch - think sculpting rather than bodging.
“You’ve got to get the lines of the arching perfect, the little bends in the doors when it’s had a hit in the door. You’ve got to get those lines perfect. So, I think that is where that detail comes from with painting.”
The business started from a single garage where he had to move cars in and out, just so he could work on the other side. After a couple of years at a four-bay garage near St. Peter’s Valley, the business was growing, and he was offered the unit he uses now. That was nine years ago, and after investing in a proper spray booth, fitting out the workshop and the countless other costs that a business has to absorb, it started making money again.
Pictured: The Vehicle Workshop has been based in a large unit at the St Peter’s Technical Park for nine years.
“I just skimmed the bottom of closing the doors, and then it started to rise and within eight to nine months I had cleared my debt and I was in the black, I was ok. It was a big momentous day for me. Almost hitting the bottom and then crawling back up. It’s almost like somebody pushing you, and you are off balance and you are going forward. You know when you are trying to stop yourself falling. That’s how it felt to me for about the first three years. You’re stumbling, you think you’ve got to get bigger premises, you’ve got to get a proper limited business account, so you face the problems as they arise. That’s what I did, and it was about three years in that I started addressing things before they arose.”
It was twenty-two years ago that Andy first came to Jersey after a work colleague told him about a job opportunity and he has called it home ever since.
“When I first came to the island, I bought a camper, I bought a surfboard, I bought a guitar and that’s what I did in my spare time. I just went to the beach and learnt to surf and play the guitar. Coming from the centre of England, Birmingham, there’s no coast. Seeing the coast when you first come over, I was like ‘oh my God’. So, every minute I could I was surfing, playing guitar, meeting new friends and camping out at St. Ouen, when you still could. Jersey has been good to me.”
Pictured: "Every minute I could I was surfing, playing guitar, meeting new friends and camping out at St. Ouen, when you still could."
And Andy believes in giving back to the island that has given him so much. Every year he donates thousands to charity and of course the yellow ex-JT phone box has probably been his most extravagant gesture. He admits that, at £1,000, he probably paid over the odds for it, but that doesn’t matter even if for now it is being used to store a vacuum cleaner or as somewhere to go for a bit of peace and quiet.
“Every time I look at it, it makes me smile. It needs a bit of work doing to it and I’m still going to keep it yellow. If I have any say in it, it’s going to be a mini bar in the back garden for when you're having a barbecue. Or it’s going to be a micro greenhouse for herbs. But at the moment it’s in the workshop with a self-isolation sticker on it.”
Lockdown was a chance for Andy to pursue his passion for restoring VW campervans. And with all that space, why wouldn’t you? The camper spotted on the way in was the result of his enforced break from work.
“It was lovely, it was like a big man-cave. It was like reverting back to my single garage but with more equipment and more space. Everyone knew it was coming so I ordered all the panels that I needed. I cut the door skins off, front panels, sills, lots of welding. I managed to repair it all and get it repainted within six weeks, so it was going some. But on the other side of that it was good for my mental health. I couldn’t imagine being sat at home for six weeks.”
Coronavirus meant a month-and-a-half’s shutdown, but the business which employs seven people including Andy, is still growing and is on course to break previous years records. He puts that down to the quality of the work they do and the good service that customers get. But it’s also about being a boss that’s prepared to get stuck in with everyone else and that includes making the tea, sweeping the floor and painting.
Pictured: Andy is a boss who is prepared to get stuck in with everyone else.
“I’ve always based the business on a simple test, if I wanted to work somewhere, what body shop would I like to work in. You spend more time at work than you do with your friends or your family, so you can make it somewhere enjoyable and comfortable. I hate it when they call me boss, but they still call me boss because they know it winds me up.”
