From backyard to frontrunner Friedels panel-beaters keep future in scope What started off as a one-man concern more than four decades ago is set to embark on its most ambitious transformation yet. Friedels Collision Repair Centre has been serving Windhoek car owners for over 40 years.That''s even before founder Friedel Cloete started redirecting clients from his backyard in Khomasdal''s Jaguar Street to an improved, eight-bay workshop on the corner of Peterson and Sterling streets.
Having since moved to even larger premises on Hans-Dietrich Genscher Street, a key realisation over the years has been the role of technology and need for constant elevation.
“The competition gets tighter all the time,” says current manager Riaan Cloete, noting ever more stringent requirements demanded by car manufacturers in order to secure authorised insurance jobs.
It''s a challenge the company says it is up to, with plans currently under way to turn its panel-beating and spray-painting undertaking into a larger, one-stop shop for customers needing work done on their cars, while providing a welcoming atmosphere for families to stay entertained while they wait.
“The idea is to create a space where we can cater to anyone, regardless of whether they want to have done panel-beating, spray-painting, wheel alignment or brake replacements,” Cloete says, flipping through artist''s drawings of the planned layout – including a formidable area set aside for dining and leisure.
“We''re still very much at the conceptualising stage, and have made quite a few changes already based on cost estimates and optimum use,” Cloete says.
It''s leaps and bounds from where the founding Cloete started as a one-man concern, taking on clients in his backyard after hours.
He had arrived in Windhoek from Rehoboth in 1960, at the age of 16, to find a job.
“His first job was with Mrs Opper-Dorfen near the Old Location, where he did housework and cleaning work at the shop for about a year,” the younger Cloete says.
“He observed how panel beating and spray painting was done at Universal Motors (now the location of HB Spares), and became very interested. So he requested a job, but was turned down.”
Failing to get a job in the workshop, Cloete would instead take up the role of a cleaner at Universal Motors, he says, and so found a way to learn the trade.
“It was not easy to survive in Windhoek, but with hard work he could work after hours, from his home in Jaguar Street and build up his clients.”
In 1980, Cloete''s next big break came when Daantjie Louw, owner-founder of Danlou Motors, started supplying him with work.
This resulted in his introduction to IGI Insurance, the first insurance company to trust ''Friedels'' with insurance work.
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