Blake’s, which has four North Bay locations, including Santa Rosa and Rohnert Park, is an award-winning body repair shop that won a Clio Award (the advertising industry’s equivalent to an Oscar) for a TV ad it produced in the late 90s.

(In the ad, a woman who has been two-timed by her husband pulls up next to what she thinks is his parked red sports car at a golf course and proceeds to pound it with a sledge hammer. After she’s smacked the car a few times, her husband drives up – in his red sports car – and asks her, “Honey, what’s wrong?” That’s when she realizes she’ll need an expert body repair service.)

“Steve Klunk and his team at Blake’s in Rohnert Park are working on a tight schedule with us to provide concourse-level body and paint work,” says Mark Singleton. “We’ve worked closely with them before and know they’re the ones who can pull off this exacting and sophisticated a job.” The Triumph’s body is currently at Blake’s Rohnert Park facility undergoing preparation.

Singleton says Brad Reich and his staff at RPM, also based in Rohnert Park, have quite a challenge on their hands with the Triumph’s engine. “It has to meet specifications from the 1950s, which means that instead of putting in bigger pistons or radical cams, there’s a lot of painstaking porting, polishing and balancing designed to restore the engine to its ‘primal condition.’

“We’ve also worked with RPM before and know that they’re the best people in the region for this kind of work.”

Singleton says as BEM increases its range of services, it has been creating a select list of automotive suppliers it can ally with on a project-by-project basis. “That allows us to draw on the top people in their fields and assemble ad-hoc teams that are perfect for particular projects.”