Then there are 26-year-old business partners Andrew
Coppersmith and Andy Lane, the co-owners of A Plus Diesel Sales. They
specialize in customizing Chevrolet and GMC trucks powered by Duramax diesel
engines and the company is gaining a reputation nationwide for its immaculately
detailed pickups.
“We’re not just car salesmen,” said Coppersmith. “We’re
huge diesel truck enthusiasts.”
The company recently moved to 8 Storm Drive behind the
Ice Cream Dugout in Windham into a 3,720 square foot facility that will let the
growing venture continue to evolve.
The new facility is a far cry from when Coppersmith
started working on cars and trucks in his garage in 2010. He was trained in
auto body work and at age 21, he had his license to sell automobiles. He tried
his hand with a Honda Civic.
“A guy asked me if I changed the timing belt and I said
I’m done selling these because I don’t know enough about them,” recalled
Coppersmith. “But I know about Duramaxs so I started dabbling in that.”
He sold a few trucks and was doing auto body work out of
a shop next to Raymond Service Center in Raymond. His brother got involved and
they sold a few trucks together. Andrew Coppersmith had stayed in touch with
Lane who graduated from the University of Maine at Orono with a degree in
construction management and was working in that business down in Massachusetts.
Lane was selling recreational vehicles on the side on
Craigslist and doing well at it, so he told Coppersmith to give him a Duramax
to sell.
“He started selling them faster than I could find them so
I made him an offer,” laughed Coppersmith. “I said, ‘Get up here, we need you
now’.”
Lane returned to Maine just under two years ago and the
company moved to a shop on Route 26 in Gray. It was there Coppersmith learned
the auto body trade at The 1 Collision Center under the watchful eye of owner
Junior Locke. A Plus leased the facility until the continued growth of the
business forced the move to Windham.
A highlight of the new shop is the 27-foot by 14-foot
Garmat semi down draft spray booth. Coppersmith and his crew use all Spies
Hecker paint exclusively.
Of course any successful business has key employees.
Joshua Tubbs has been with Coppersmith since he started A Plus Auto Body and he
makes sure the shop runs smoothly. David White researches and finds the trucks
for the company to buy. A Plus has bought trucks from seemingly every state in
the union.
“You go to a used car dealer and see the $4,995 car and
it has a scratch or dent, they leave it,” said Coppersmith. “We fix every dent,
every scratch, bumpers, dents, windows, everything you can think of.” Every
truck is also detailed by Detail Maine in Windham and to give the trucks a
custom look, A Plus Diesel Sales puts on a legal lift kit and custom rims and
tires.
Since Lane and Coppersmith teamed up, they’ve sold about
600 trucks to states as far away as Kentucky and Michigan. They’ve never paid
for advertising and have used social media to promote the company. They have
about 5,000 followers on Facebook and Lane is planning to do more with
Instagram.
For the future, Coppersmith and Lane say they would like
to get into selling aftermarket tires, wheels and accessories. They would also
like to build a custom truck and raffle it off to a customer, similar to the TV
show Diesel Brothers on the Discovery Channel.
With all those ideas, obviously the company is growing
and the proverbial sky appears to be the limit. For now, the partners are
focusing on building their business and selling more custom trucks.
“The biggest thing is for us to have a good platform to
sell,” said Lane. “We’re selling trucks that we can honestly say are
dependable, high-quality vehicles.”
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