company profile

Over the years, the company name became recognised as a mark of quality and Triangle Sprays grew gradually and steadily to become a medium-sized repairer, gaining insurance approval in the 1980's/1990's for Norwich Union, Cornhill, Churchill and Prudential, as well as being manufacturer approved repairer for Peugeot and Saab, the latter being awarded in 1988 in conjunction with our dealer partner, Peter Clarke Saab (now known as Southampton Saab).

In the early 1990's, we approached the local Mercedes Benz dealer, Langstone of Eastleigh (previously Sparshatts) and secured a contract with them as their appointed repairer. This increased our workload by only a modest percentage as Mercedes Benz cars were still quite a rarity. However, as the marque became more and more successful, we found that we were struggling to cope with the numbers of Mercedes Benz vehicles as well as Saab, Peugeot and various other makes referred by our Insurance Company partners. We therefore took the commercial decision to dedicate our efforts towards what we believed to be the contracts which best-reflected the aims of Triangle Sprays, which essentially, is to carry out the best possible repairs which would be most suited to the quality end of the market, where our craftsmanship would be most appreciated.

The result of this decision was to relinquish insurance company approvals systematically until we arrived at our current status, which means that we are approved repairers for Hampshire for Saab and for central south region for Mercedes Benz passenger cars and Smart. We are approved by Aviva and Allianz to repair Mercedes Benz vehicles insured by them. We also deal with all other insurance companies as necessary and we have good working relationships, since most recognise the need for specialist repairers.

Time marches on, of course and we outgrew our premises in Old Lyndhurst Road, forcing us into purchasing our present site off of Southampton Road (A336), though still in Cadnam, in February 2001. We moved in here in June 2001 following conversion from it's previous use as an engineering works to

bodyshop. We now occupy a site in excess of one acre and we operate from covered secure premises of nearly 10,000 square feet with ample parking for many cars. This move was necessary due to volume of work, not just from enormously increased vehicle ownership generally but also through the dramatic success from sales of Mercedes Benz and Saab as they shook off their old 'dowdy' image and changed direction towards dynamic styling and performance. As previously mentioned, Peter Clarke's became Southampton Saab and Langstone's became Pentagon Group and then Ridgeway Group with dealerships in Southampton, Portsmouth, Winchester and Chichester. We had also added Jacksons of Poole (Mercedes Benz of Poole) to our customer base. The M27 Motorway now runs where there used to be fields and the B3090 Romsey to Lyndhurst road is a busy through-fare re-directed over what used to be allotments. Good for business but perhaps tough on fond memories!

Kenneth's brother, Denis, joined the company as a partner in 1971 and Ken's two sons, Michael and Graham were subsequently added to the workforce in 1979 and 1984 respectively. Kenneth then retired from the business in 1991 and his share was taken over by Michael and Graham. Sadly Richard Larkman passed away in 2004, having left in the 1980's to try his hand in the catering industry. Den's son, David, joined us in 1995 and became the fourth partner in 2001, and so Triangle Sprays still remained a truly family-owned company, fairly rare these days. We presently have fifteen members of staff and we carry out around 25 repairs per week. We believe that this is small enough not to lose sight of our direction but large enough to cope with all expectations.

Denis chose to retire in 2007 and so we made the decision to overhaul the company and used the opportunity to become a limited company on the advice of our new accountants. This happened in April 2007 and the remaining three Partners, namely Michael, Graham and David are now the Directors of Triangle Sprays Limited. To all intents and purposes, we are fundamentally unchanged other than our titles and the very same staff have been retained.

Triangle Sprays was founded in 1959 as an independent accident repair company by two friends, Kenneth Whitley and Richard Larkman (deceased). The premises were located in the small New Forest village of Cadnam, about 7 miles west of Southampton, in Old Lyndhurst Road. This was quite a gamble at the time because vehicle ownership in those days was considered a luxury and traffic along the Romsey to Lyndhurst roads would have hardly been described as busy!