Toronto, Ontario — AutoCanada Collision Centres hosted its 2023 Conference last week, where the network’s repair facilities, vendors, OEM and insurance partners gathered for two full days of event programming—and some special celebrity appearances.
The festivities kicked off on Wednesday evening with a reception at the Sheraton Centre’s in-house restaurant, 43 Down, followed by a full day of speaker sessions, plus an appearance from Chip Foose, renowned car designer and star of the TV show Overhaulin’, courtesy of BASF and AutoCanada Collision Centres’ partnership.
Michel Matte from BMW Group Canada and Frank Phillips of Rivian also spoke to the audience on Thursday, where each updated attendees on their respective company’s relationships with certified collision centres and OEM certification procedures. Devon Fenton from DCCHail also gave the crowd a rundown of his company’s hail damage scanner, which the group got to demo during a facility tour on Friday.
Even after lunch, the surprises were far from over—attendees were also treated to tickets to the Blue Jays’ game and a pretty stellar view from the Schneider’s Porch.
Friday morning brought more speaker sessions, featuring Taylor Moss of OE Connection, Dave Flockhart of BETAG North America, Georgios Karayiannis of DEKRA North America, Paul Stella from Toyota Canada and Andy Macdonald from Lucid Motors, of course; along with the keynote speaker—Olympic gold medallist Cheryl Pounder—who closed out the speaking portion of the day.
Attendees then boarded a bus to Excellence Auto Collision for a tour of the facility, a DCCHail scanner demo and a delicious food truck lunch.
Attendees at the AutoCanada Collision Centres conference came from various corners of the industry. Collision centre mangers, insurance reps and industry vendors were all in attendance; as were the aforementioned OEMs, plus reps from automakers Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Porsche, Volkswagen Group Canada and Tesla.
Check out our exclusive photos from the event below.
