Cool piece of history. I don't personally remember seeing Earl shops but I do now about them. We tease about doing Earl scheib work at work lol
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Paint technology was so bad back then, that most car finishes showed their age after only five years. Discount places like Earl Scheib and many others were a viable solution for rejuvenating an otherwise sound vehicle.
Scheib also offered premium services and they could make your car look pretty good, but they dominated the low end market. They did a lot of business with low end used car dealers in my area. What really killed them was MAACO -- which was named after the founder's initials. Anthony A. Martino founded AAMCO and MAACO to get into the discount auto repair business. His MAACO division catered to the higher end consumer and it took a lot of market share from Scheib.
BTW -- Martino also founded the Sparks Tune-Up chain back in the early 80's. This guy had a great understanding of the secondary US automobile market.