When I was growing up, I loved custom cars and couldn’t wait to go to the car shows like Speed Sport and I was mesmerized by the trick paint jobs I would see there. I started out customizing and painting bicycles when I was about ten. By 16 I had graduated to some painting on motorcycles as my brother was lettering for a couple of the local race teams and they smashed them up constantly. I finished college and ran restaurants for the next few years culminating in owning one (and eventually going bankrupt).

I got in to painting motorcycles full time as my brother had a side business doing art work (lettering, striping, graphics) and was farming out the paint and bodywork to three different painters. I thought it would be a fast way to raise some cash and buy into another restaurant. Since most jobs were custom, there wasn’t a lot of info around so I learned by trial and error (I started out redoing just about every job until I got it down to every other job, until I stopped making as many mistakes or I wouldn’t survive). Our first serious job won best paint at the largest custom motorcycle show in North America and I was lucky enough to have my work win it every year while I operated my shop (ten years).

I didn’t get into painting cars for a few years, but my first custom job won best paint at Speed Sport and I managed to win Best Paint with every custom car job I did, although I had a hard time making any money doing cars and didn’t do many. One year we managed to win just about every show in Ontario for paint including Motion (now Performance world), Speed Sport (car and bike), International World Of Motorcycles and about every other small show held in the province. It was getting ridiculous and we stopped keeping track, although I was proud we produced an ISCA world grand champion and won the Rat’s Nest in Daytona for a Canadian.

I was starting to get bored and was still struggling financially (and met my soon-to be- wife Nancy) so I jumped when I got offered a job as a technical paint rep for a high-end German company. I was with them for years and left for an American company as Director of Technical Services - Refinish. A few years ago, I decided to get into distributing House Of Kolor, which is what I do today.

I still paint a bit, as it is the only way to really understand products and just did my first custom job on a car in years (which managed to take best paint, best graphics and grand champion at Speedorama - Toronto this year -whew). I am still learning but I’ve been privileged to a lot of intensive training on refinish products, which I hope to share with you.

John Connery