Today we’d like to introduce you to Phil Sansossio.
Phil, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I started working for my father in 1992 at his auto body shop after school and then at night, I worked at a local BMW mechanics shop. In 1997, I spent about a year working for a stereo shop doing sound system installs. That year I started road racing BMWs and spent the next decade racing BMWCCA club racing and SCCA Nationals. I spent all of that time building/ fixing other race cars out of my father’s shop. A neck injury ended my racing career after a big impact and by then the car show scene types had “found” me and I started building custom street/ show cars. And now I run SAC which is best described as an automotive boutique.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It has been a pretty smooth road, I’ve just always known what I was going to be doing so I did whatever it took to learn everything possible as far as running a business or working on cars. Finding my niche took a bit longer than expected but I’m happy to finally be all settled in with steady work and a good loyal customer base. There’s always bumps in the road, but I love what I do so 80 hour work weeks don’t bother me. Owning your own business is a lot more work than anyone ever realizes till they do it. My father taught me a lot and helped me learn the ins and outs of the field.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Sansossio Auto Couture – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
SAC installs/ sells the best quality aftermarket body kits on the market. Every shop sells the same stuff and I wasn’t impressed by the easy to acquire products quality. So I went after the brand’s that are next to impossible to get in this country. Setup brokers, customs, freight, anything needed to get the biggest names from other countries and get people the stuff they thought they’d never find. We specialize primarily in BMW, Porsche, and Audi though there’s plenty of English and Italian cars in and out. We continue to do minor collision repair and that’s how a lot of the custom projects start since it’s a great time to upgrade.
We’re most known as the shop that loves to do widebody conversions and our love for our OEM+ modification style, which is basically customizing factory parts or using parts from other models to upgrade kesser models. That seems to be what sets us apart and our attention to detail and our ability to build custom panels.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
I like to expand my online sales and get some of these hard to obtain parts out to more people. I think about going back to a bigger shop but for now I’m happy in a 4 car shop and not having too many employees to worry about again. Bigger shop was a much bigger headache! I’m hoping to have surgery on my neck and get back to racing and maybe get the 5 car team going again which is like another career in itself on top of acquiring transporters so that’s a few years away. Since I’m only 3 years into the new smaller (but much nicer!) shop, I’m constantly making adjustments and deciding what sublets to obtain or get rid of.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sansossioautocouture.com
- Phone: 5086559646
- Email: philsans05@sansossioautocouture.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/philsans05
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/sansossioautodesigns
Image Credit:
www.flickr.com/leemiks
Mike Lee
Getting in touch: BostonVoyager is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
