Owner Glen Roberts has seen a lot of vehicles roll in and out of The Finishing Touch Body Shop over the years and, celebrating its 40th year in town, he doesn’t expect the business to slow down anytime soon.

The Finishing Touch’s mission statement gets to the point: To provide a high quality of repair experience. Along with working on collector cars, the shop specializes in repairing cars following an accident, working as a direct repair facility with many insurance providers.

June 2020 marks the shop’s fourth decade in business, something Roberts said he is quite proud of. The shop changed locations in that time and its focus has shifted a bit, but he said the crew has always been focused on quality work.

“Ninety percent of our business is fixing crashed vehicles,” Roberts said. “We’re a preferred shop for several insurance companies…You have to be I-CAR Gold Certified for that, which is the best of the best. You have to send all of your technicians to constant training to keep up on the latest techniques; that’s not an easy thing to do, but it’s important if you want to fix cars correctly.”

Roberts said modern cars can get pretty high tech, so the continuing education equips his team to be able to handle whatever rolls, or gets towed, into the shop.

Roberts moved to Fountain Hills in 1979 and, a year later, rented a building on Laser Drive to open The Finishing Touch.

“It’s a long building and was pretty much the only space available to rent at the time,” Roberts said. “There was something like 2,500 people here at the time. I started on Laser Dr. with one unit and, by the time 1984 came along, I was renting three units. I kept getting bigger and bigger.”

Roberts decided it would soon be time to branch out further, so he used his business’ success to buy a lot on Colony Dr. About a year and a half later, he was able to build his own building on that lot, which is where The Finishing Touch is now located.

Roberts said he’s seen things change quite a bit around Fountain Hills over the years, noting that in 1980, “nobody would deliver parts here because they thought we were halfway to Payson.”

“We’re considered part of the Valley more than we used to be,” he added.

His shop had changed quite a bit, too.

“When I opened the shop, it was strictly to do the Ferrari dealer’s work in Scottsdale,” Roberts said. “People eventually found out I was doing Ferraris and doing nice work, so they’d ask me to work on their Volkswagen, Ford, Chevy or whatever.”

Roberts said it was better business to add repairs to his offerings, so he added some employees and, eventually, the model basically flipped.

“Now we’re at, I’d say, 10 percent collector cars and 90 percent insurance work, when it used to be the other way around,” he added.

When asked how he’s been able to stick around for 40 years, Roberts chalked it up to “quality and customer service.”

“We’ve always tried to maintain the best quality and the best employees,” Roberts said. “My manager, Matt [Tilden], has been there 23 years and he’s done an excellent job. My painter has been there probably 15 years and our body men have been there for quite a while…We just try to treat everyone the way we’d want to be treated; whether employees or customers. It all comes around.”

Roberts said his business also takes great pride in supporting the community that has supported it over the years, giving to everything from local schools to charitable events.

“It’s hard to believe I was 25 years old when I started this shop and it’s hard to believe I’m 65 now,” Roberts said. “It’s amazing how time flies. People say that if you love what you do, it’s not really work. I’ve been so fortunate to do what I love for 40 years and I plan to keep doing it until I drop.”

Whether it’s a workaday vehicle or a $50 million collector car, Roberts said his team always aims for perfection.

The Finishing Touch Body Shop is located at 16940 Colony Dr. For more information, visit finishingtouchaz.com or call 480-837-3355.