Darren Grey is the Manager at Granite City Collision Center in Mount Airy. He has been involved in the automotive industry his entire life, and worked in the body shop at Flow in Winston-Salem before joining Granite City Collisions 5 years ago. Darren is a dedicated employee and loves the work he does for the owner, Scott McCorkle. “I love this aspect of the business,” Darren said. “I love taking cars that are destroyed in a crash, piecing them back together, and making them new again.”
As the manager of Granite City Collision Center, Darren’s job is to oversee the entire process of putting a car back together after a collision. He ensures that his team takes a car that’s been damaged, big damages or small, and makes it as good as new. Darren loves painting the cars that come into his shop. He is a manager but he enjoys going into the shop and working with his employees on the cars.
“When you take a car in and it’s destroyed and broken, putting it back together gives you a sense of accomplishment,” Darren said. “At the end of the day, you’re putting families in the cars you fix.”
At Granite City Collision Center, Darren and his team take care of all aspects of the collision. They do suspension work, body work, airbags, and even work on the interior. They work on everything to get a car back to it’s original condition. “Anything related to a collision, we can fix,” Darren said.
Darren enjoys seeing the different style cars that come into his shop. From traditional cars to hybrid cars, he loves seeing how each car is put together differently and how cars have changed over time. At Granite City Collision Center, they see cars from across the automotive industry. In particular, trucks are very popular in Mount Airy.
Darren went to school originally to be a mechanic but didn’t like it as much as he likes what he does at Granite City Collision Center. “I like running the business aspect of it a lot more than I like turning wrenches,” he said.
At Granite City Collision Center, Darren averages over 100 cars a month. From scratches to cars that have been cut in half, Darren and his team do work anywhere from $100 to $30,000 in repairs. Darren said that on average repair cost about $1500 per vehicle. “I love seeing a car transform from being scratched up to being shiny and new again” say Darren.
Darren is from Mount Airy and is glad to “come back home.” He traveled to jobs for many years in Winston-Salem and Virginia, and is very happy to be working in his hometown. He has lived in Mount Airy his entire life and is happy with the work his team has accomplished.
