It is time again to welcome another international brand of refinish paint which is being exclusively distributed by Mix and Match from KZN. Their recent well supported opening day for auto refinish dealers drew a huge array of business owners from right across the province.
The father and son team of Mix and Match, Satar, Ahmed and Yacoob Mahomed, are entering a new phase of business expansion with a fully imported brand from the world’s largest paint maker in refinish terms, Axalta. Challenger is one of the oldest brands and which has an efficient production centre in Belgium.
Challenger is a product with 150 years of experience and Axalta are busy operating in some 132 international markets with a colossal range of some 4000 paint distribution outlets. They have a 100% focus on the paint business and the list of their sheer size remains unparalleled with 46 production sites operating on a global basis with an industry presence in coatings for light vehicle OEM production, commercial vehicles, industrial and refinish markets all catered for in their sectors.
The Challenger brand comes with a family of 48 official motor maker approvals lists and a firm reach into African markets. This expansion is the largest ever with 12 countries now up and running in body shop suppliers in refinish. Lucian Jantjies, Business Development Manager at Axalta SA, says it is all driven by a wealth of experience, great passion and drive from their customers.
They were very upbeat about the new venture with the Mix & Match team, who themselves have many years of good work under their belt with excellent customer service and colour back-up in the business.
Paul Retief, Axalta technical Africa, touched on the compact range of toners and primers. The Challenger range offer special high cover primers, clearcoats and hardeners. All mixing ratios remain 2:1 to keep things simple and enhance the user-friendly aspects of the complete range, which has a very wide application window for use on all substrates.
On the subject of colour, Challenger has all the very latest spectro colour matching tools with both fast identification and a mixing system that will deliver a very low waste level in daily use.
“When it comes to value, we are on top with Challenger,” says Yacoob, “because our pricing will be at levels, in many cases, of close to 50% less expensive than a number of competitors on basecoat, 2K toners and top coats.” He went on to finalise the day’s proceedings by saying that Mix & Match, after many years of good trading, are now taking a further step up the ladder of fame by distributing the top class Challenger refinish brand.
Although the market is a bit crowded, the Challenger offer makes a great deal of sense from a sheer value, all-round introduction. The company feel it has great potential for local expansion in the year ahead in KZN with other national markets that will be developed with the Challenger brands offer to follow soonest.
