Auto-body shop chain is beyond repair, collapses

Dave Brooks

A California body shop chain mysteriously folded over the weekend,

leaving 700 employees without paychecks and more than 2,000 motorists

without their vehicles.

Santa Monica-based M2 Automotive Inc. saw its assets seized by

creditors Monday, forcing it to close its 27 locations including

shops in Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley and Huntington Beach.

Former employees worked busily to remove their tools and personal

items from the repair shop Thursday, but customers will not get their

vehicles released until early next week, Mike Joncich of Credit

Managers Assn. of California said.

“Some of the vehicles are still disassembled, some of them haven’t

been paid for,” he said. “We need to get body shop people out here to

help assess the situation.”

Joncich’s firm is charged with liquidating M2’s assets.

“They could not keep their doors open and needed someone to clean

up the mess,” he said.

The M2 collapse came just days after Irvine-based Caliber

Collision Centers backed out of a deal to buy the company.

Costa Mesa M2 manager Brian Bixby said he received a call Friday

that the company was folding.

“They told me that they were locking the doors Monday, our assets

were being liquidated and creditors were taking over,” he said.

Many of the M2 employees had no idea the closure was coming.

“I just showed up for work on Monday and found that they were

closed,” technician Gerardo Lopez of the Huntington Beach branch

said. “Everything was normal on Friday. There were no signs of

anything like this happening.”

Lopez said he and the other nine employees were now all out of

work -- some employees without pay after their checks bounced.

“It’s a really unpleasant surprise,” he said. “It’s a tough

situation to find yourself in.”

Joncich’s liquidation firm said it plans to hold a sealed bid

auction today of M2’s assets at the company’s Santa Monica

headquarters and hopefully get the cars released back to their owners

by early next week. The Costa Mesa shop presently has at least 15

cars in its rear lot, while the Huntington Beach branch appears to be

housing a half-dozen vehicles.

The entire episode is bad for the auto body industry, said Ray

Galvin, president of Skill Craft Body Shop in Huntington Beach.

“We’re not really highly regarded in the public eye anyway,” he

said. “The consumers see this kind of thing happen and begin to lose

trust in the body shop industry.”

* DAVE BROOKS can be reached at (714) 966-4609 or by e-mail at

dave.brooks@latimes.com.