About Us
The company was founded in 2020 as RH Automotive Ltd, but the story goes back over 30 years. Richard Hall, the founder, was the son of a garage owner & Body repairer Stan Hall who ran 'Cromptons' in Douglas. Richard spent much of his youth around the garage, and as a teenager began working there during school holidays. Although working at Cromptons initially after finishing school, Richard went off to have a career away from the motor trade, but always came back to body work in between other projects.
Finally in 2020 the time came for Richard to return to the motor trade full time, and start working for himself rather then being employed by someone else. Signing on to operate a ChipsAway franchise, and officially beginning operation in December of that year. For 18 months, under the ChipsAway name, RH Automotive operated a purely mobile SMART repair business. SMART being the acronym for 'Small Medium Aria Repair Technology'. During this time repairs were completed only if the customer had a driveway, or similar off-road place that could be used. Then in June 2022 a unit in Foxdale was added to the business. The unit allowed for collection & return, meaning customers who don't have off-road parking could also take advantage of the repair service.
The next big change came in December 2024. A workshop in Douglas came available, and the outgoing tenant was looking to sell some of the hardware that was installed to the new tenant. The workshop which had been home to a traditional body repair business, was equipped with one of the newest low bake ovens on the island. Now able to offer faster and cleaner repairs, the business started to evolve away from the SMART repair model.
As 2025 progressed, the decision was made that at the end of the existing contract, RH Automotive would leave the franchise network, and allow the business to evolve in the direction it was carving for itself. To that end, Express Body Repair was born.
Still trying to offer maximum convenience to our customers, we strive to turn around repairs is minimum time. While traditional body repairers work the smaller repairs around the bigger crash repairs, so a job that only requires 3 to 6 hours of work, will be in the workshop for the full week. Because we don't take in the big insurance crash repairs, we turn jobs round in a much shorter time frame. Customers can bring the car to the workshop, or we offer collection and return island wide. In 2026 we will have Courtesy Car availability too.