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Start your engines, Adams County Auto Center will do the rest

The body shop officially opened for business earlier this fall

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November 11, 2024

ADAMS – Things are going well for a new vehicle repair shop in the City of Adams.

“It’s only been about two months since we’ve been open, but things have been going well so far,” Scott Lowrey, co-owner of Adams County Auto Center, said. “It’s been a relatively steady stream of people calling and asking, ‘can you do oil changes, tire changes, tire repair, things like that?’ We’re happy to help whoever, and it helps that we have hours from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. People know they can show up after 5 p.m. and talk to somebody.”

Lowrey, along with business partners – Brad Boser and Mark Vallier – officially opened for business Sept. 28 at 300 N. Main St. – joining a handful of other auto body shops serving customers in the region.

“It’s very rural in Adams County, but we felt there was still a need for another auto shop,” Lowrey said. “Wisconsin Dells is 20-25 minutes away and Wisconsin Rapids is about half an hour, so there are plenty of people around needing vehicle repairs. Every one of the shops is busy.”

Lowrey said because auto loan interest rates are high – up to 8% – and new cars are pricey, people tend to fix their vehicles instead of buying a different one.

“As history goes, that’s pretty much the tale of the tape,” he said. “When prices go through the roof, people tend to hang on to their stuff longer, including vehicles. People aren’t willing to go out and buy new cars because of the high interest rates on car loans. If it doesn’t cost you much to keep a vehicle on the road, why would you go out and take a hit on the pocketbook to get a new ride?”

Scott Lowrey said Adams County Auto Center “can pretty much do anything a typical small repair shop can do.” Submitted Photo

Lowrey said Adams County Auto can pretty much do anything a typical small repair shop can do.

“Even if it’s a major repair, we’ll figure out a way to get it done,” he said. “If it’s an engine, we’ll pull it apart and send it off if we have to. Mark has enough contacts in the surrounding counties that we can get pretty much anything done or (get parts) from a salvage yard.”

Lowrey said before they started Adams County Auto, Boser and Vallier worked for Harper’s Salvage (S & S).

“Those guys know everybody from all over the county and surrounding counties,” he said. “They can get a hold of them and find parts. So, yeah, we’re capable of doing anything.”

How it began

Lowrey said the inspiration behind Adams County Auto dates back “many years.”

“All three of us are co-owners, but we all do slightly different things,” he said. “Vallier is a master mechanic with 20 years’ worth of experience. Vallier works full-time as an IT guy with the Mauston School District, but he shows up here at 5 p.m. and works until nine.”

Lowrey said Boser – who is a high school friend of his – was a carpenter for 30 years but has always worked on cars.

“Boser is what you’d call a backyard mechanic guy,” he said. “He’s one of those guys who can tear the top half of a V6 down in the stall of a garage, fix it and put it back together. Both Boser and Vallier are very mechanically inclined when it comes to vehicles.”

Lowrey said he has worked on cars in the past as well.

“I retired from the military in 2020 and did some work for the county as a veteran service officer,” he said. “Boser and I both said, ‘Hey, we need to do something different.’ We did some sandblasting for a while and some odd jobs, but then this building became available.”

Lowrey said from there, they talked to Vallier about possibly going into business together – and they were met with similar aspirations.

“Vallier was actually looking to start a shop and was already wrenching on some vehicles in Boser’s space,” he said. “The three of us said, ‘Why don’t we just take a look at this place that’s up for lease and talk to the guy and go from there?’ That’s what we did.”

Adams County Auto Center, located at 300 N. Main St. in Adams, officially opened for business Sept. 28. Submitted Photo

Lowrey said the trio built the LLC as “3 Wise Guys Auto” but eventually decided to go with the name Adams County Auto Center.

“Part of that is because we’re going to be doing dealership stuff and used car sales here in the future,” he said. “We wanted to keep (the name) more general, and 3 Wise Guys is used relatively often in the business world. In Wisconsin, several other businesses use that name.”

A little work needed

Lowrey said the building in which Adams County Auto now sits needed a little work to bring it up to par.

“It pretty much needed a cleanup and a facelift,” he said. “It’s been a car dealership for 21 years, and he was a one-man show – so, it was a bit dated. We put another coat of paint on it, did a little bit of work to the retaining wall to the north and cleaned that up a little bit. There are a lot of trees overhanging and garbage caught everywhere because nobody’s really been cleaning up the lot at all (when it sat vacant). We did a lot of work pulling weeds and knocking down trees.”

Lowrey said a new layer of epoxy was also put down on the garage floor.

“It looked 21 years old,” he laughed. “The previous owner of the building already had some nice flooring in here, but we also built the counter and put some new lights in the office to light it up better.”

For more information on Adams County Auto Center, head to its Facebook page. 

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