With roots that date back more than 80 years, McDaniel’s Quality Body Works Inc. has served thousands of Longview residents by providing quality auto repairs and top-notch customer service.
“That’s always been and continues to be the McDaniel’s policy. Do the absolute best quality repairs that we can do on a vehicle and treat people with the utmost kindness and respect,” said Darrell Smith, owner of McDaniel’s Quality Body Works.
McDaniel’s is among the oldest body shops in East Texas, and has served Longview for 87 years of the city’s existence.
Founder V.L. McDaniel opened his namesake business in 1933 on Tyler Street near downtown Longview, where it thrived even during World War II when many businesses shuttered. In 1947, the company moved to a new home at 404 E. Marshall Ave., where it continues to operate today.
The repair shop passed through three generations of the McDaniel family before Smith, a longtime sales manager for the company, purchased it in 2011.
With support from the community, in 2017 the business expanded to having a secondary location in Kilgore, Smith said. The Kilgore community rallied behind the location, helping to make that venture a success, he said. This year, McDaniel’s opened another satellite location in Gilmer.
“At our location here in Longview, we have done a lot of work for people in the Kilgore community for years. We’ve had a lot of support across East Texas,” Smith said. “Because we own our main shop here in Longview, we’re able to operate the smaller shops as an extension rather than as a standalone operation.”
That means if the company needs to repair a heavily damaged car or has a major framework job, staff can easily transfer the vehicle to the Longview location which has more equipment than the satellite shops, he said.
Smith attributes the key to McDaniel’s success to its customer base and its long-tenured employees.
“With our longevity in Longview, we have families that pass us down as their collision repair provider. Before I bought the shop, when I worked for Mark McDaniel (who was third generation of the McDaniels family), he had people coming in who were his age. But his dad fixed vehicles for their dads. Now, we have grandkids and great-grandkids coming in from those same families,” Smith said. “Our longevity in Longview really ties us to the city and to this community.”
Throughout the years the business has seen some changes, mostly in response to the automotive industry itself, Smith said.
“What we do – repairing vehicles – has stayed the same,” he said. “But the art of repairing vehicles has changed. As vehicles have evolved, our equipment has changed and our techniques have changed.”
As automobiles continue to become electronically higher tech with more “bells and whistles,” Smith said, workers have to be careful in everything they repair because it could affect an electronic component somewhere else.
“We’re constantly reading and exploring and making sure that we’re keeping up with the latest trends,” he said.
While the automotive trends will continue to change in the future, Smith said McDaniel’s policy of customer service will always stay the same.
“We will always treat our customers with respect and kindness,” he said.To learn more about McDaniel’s Quality Body Works, visit mcdanielsqualitybodyworks.com.