Massage for the car
Dent specialist Jerry Wong has come a long way and has no intention of slowing down anytime soon, writes
AT the turn of a knob, a gust of hot wind hits the woman sitting in the waiting area of Dent Repairs. The younger man who’d just walked in sports a similar expression as the woman sitting down; they both look completely dejected. There’s a sense of anxiety in the air with the woman fidgeting with her phone and the man, pacing up and down, sighing.
All this comes to a momentary halt when the owner of the shop, Jerry Wong Hon Chee, enters the room. “Can I help you?” Wong asks in the gentlest of tones, breaking the tension immediately.
The guy, by now sweating profusely, mumbles the word “dent” and points to his car outside. Wong nods, smiles confidently and ushers the man to the car to inspect the dent. Barely two minutes later and Wong is back in the shop together with the man, who now looks somewhat relieved.
For Wong, these kinds of expressions are nothing new. He’s seen it for the last 20 years ever since he started his business. “Don’t worry, it’ll be as good as new,” he reassures the man. It’s not a phrase he repeats just to rid his customers of their jitters. Although he won’t readily admit it, Wong is one of the country’s most soughtafter dent technicians. One of the first few articles
written about Wong’s fascinating trade in 1996. FROM GROUND UP
His work space looks more like a film set than a workshop. The shine from the epoxy flooring bounces off the white walls decorated with newspaper clippings and photos of Wong at work in Australia, New Zealand and the UK.
A pair of mobile LED lights with a soft, white glow sits on either side of the car he’s working on. The tools of the trade, varying in length, hang neatly on a metal board.
“You’d be surprised how many people find they can’t sleep at night when their cars are dented, even a little,” Wong says, sniggering. “Cars are one of those things that people work so hard to save up for, so when they finally get it there’s a lot of not just financial but also emotional investment in it... For the first three months at least!” he adds, jokingly.
His understanding of auto care began at a young age. As a teen, he worked in his father’s car shop in Temerloh, Pahang. Surprisingly, Wong was never interested in the automotive industry, even then. “To be honest with you, I was a drifting log. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life,” he recalls, adding: “I just did whatever I had to do to pay the bills. Working with cars just happened to be a way to do that.”
With a family comprising eight siblings meant that everyone had to be supportive of each other, says Wong. “We weren’t well off so we had to share everything and stick together. They told me I could earn money any way I wanted as long as it was legal,” he recalls with a laugh.
In the early 1990s, a friend recommended him to take up a course in paintless dent repairing, a concept virtually unheard of outside Europe. “It was a crash course. I couldn’t afford to stay longer