Builder's Profile: Joey's Place
COMPANY: JOEY’S PLACE
MANAGER: JOEY STECKLER
ADDRESS: 14230-115 AVE. EDMONTON, ALBERTA T5M 3B7
TEL: (780) 454-6514
WEBSITE: www.joeysplace.com
WHAT THEY DO: HIGH QUALITY CUSTOM PAINT, RESTORATION AND FABRICATION OF EVERYTHING FROM RACE CARS, TO HOTRODS, TO EXOTICS.
Background: In 1978 Joey Steckler took his passion for building and working with cars and turned into a business. At a time when the custom van was all the rage, Joey’s knack for creating unique custom paint jobs brought the business into the forefront of the industry. After, a brief attempt at professional racing, Joey came back to Edmonton to open Joey’s Place, and continues his legacy of building and painting great cars.
PP: Joey, you have been in this business for over 30 years now. What attracted you to the business, and how have you stayed on top all this time?
JS: Since the very beginning I had a passion for painting cars. Some people have a mind for fabrication, and some for painting. I have one for painting and it’s always been something that has given me a great amount of pleasure. Now, I’ve always believed that you can’t just specialize on one make of vehicle or one skill. I’ve always employed a large work force, and we can do restorations and fabrication, whether it be a muscle car or an exotic.
PP: What is it about painting that gives you such satisfaction?
JS: Well the paint is the finishing product. It’s the paint that you are looking at when you look at a car, so it gives you a great sense of satisfaction. When I started in this industry, paint work was in much greater demand then custom metal fabrication so that is where my personal focus was concentrated. However, I also love the fabrication process and that is why I employee true craftsmen in my shop to do this work.
PP: What is required to create a great paint job?
JS: You know, it’s everything. It starts with a very skilled and competent prep person, and works its way to an equally as talented polisher. In my shop most people can do many tasks but they all have a specialty that they are very good at. Few shops have the volume of work to have these specialists in all areas. A very good painter or fabricator expects to be paid well for his talents so you better be able to keep them busy. It also helps having a facility large enough so that each process has it’s own designated work areas or work shops as we do.
PP: Has that attitude helped bring high calibre cars into the shop?
JS: Well yeah, a great paint job does start with a proper disassembly, but the preparation and sanding precess is critical. This is were the “Team” comes in. What good is it having a painter put down a nice flat paint job if a month later it shrinks and shows sanding scratches from the body work stage. We do get a lot of very rare cars that have hard or impossible to find trim pieces, so you need to make sure that the car is taken apart professionally. We are not intimidated by exotic cars, yet we can be trusted to do the job right.
PP: What would you say makes Joey’s Place stand out from the rest, what makes you special?
JS: You’ll find shops in places such as California would very seldom do such a wide range of work. This is western Canada, where the market is much smaller, so we have strived to be able to cater to anyone who wants high quality work no matter what kind of vehicle they drive. I treat them all the same and try to provide the best service.
PP: Have you found that there has been an increase of these exotic supercars coming into the shop lately?
JS: Yeah, absolutely. Edmonton has been doing pretty good for itself for the last decade or so, and you now starting to see these Bentley’s, Maserati’s and Aston Martins being driven around town. Well, if you drive a car, you run the risk of getting a dink or scrape, and these dealerships don’t have bodyshops, so you have to look for a specialist. Because we are so experienced doing custom paint, it’s given us an edge, so we have a lot of these guys direct this kind of work our way.
PP: What project that you’ve worked on over the last year would you say has given you the greatest sense of satisfaction?
JS: Well, that would have to be the silver Camaro that we had on your cover back in April. That was one of the most satisfying projects I had ever done. But to tell you the truth, there is so many. When you have customers that allow you to do the best you can, how can you choose a Shelby over a Hemi Cuda, or a LS6 Chevelle.
PP: So it sounds like you enjoy your job quite a bit?
JS: Oh, enormously. I wouldn’t still be here if I didn’t. Even when we area on the road racing, last trip home I was waking my guys up at 6 in the morning, because I wanted to get back to work. So I really do enjoy what we do here.
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