Playing Tetris with Cars

Tetris was a popular puzzle video game created by Alexey Pajitnov in 1985. The game allowed players to move by dropping pieces onto a playing field.  The completed lines disappear and give each player points. The player continues to fill in the vacant spaces and goes on until there are more pieces than space on the board. We like to say we play Tetris every day, or at least Monday through Friday… only we use cars instead of game pieces.

Having an auto body shop in Allston, MA means you work in a small footprint, and you had best be efficient.  There is very little room for us to use and to be a production collision repair shop on our level is a game of moving cars all day, every day. Our Team fondly refers to this movement as car Tetris and much like the game itself it involves strategic planning and maneuvering as you need to optimize the available space by fitting cars in various configurations.

At Allston Collision Center we start our week with car drops anywhere between 5-10 on any given day and have pickups with just about the same numbers a few days in the week. We average 13 cars in our front lot, about 7 cars in the body shop, another 8 or 9 in the paint shop and as many as 25 in our backyard.  On the daily we are shuffling vehicles around. From 7am until 4pm we are always thinking about our next move, how to maximize space, avoiding excessive movement and most important – don’t hit anything!

We have been in this game since 1928.  Cars are evolutionary and they are getting bigger, have gull wing doors, scissor doors, engines in the front, engines in the back, batteries in the front and back and so on – cars change but our space doesn’t.

Our customers always wonder where their cars go.  A customer will come back looking for something they may have left in their vehicle and are surprised to find it has moved and out of front parking lot.  We move them quickly and get all vehicles into receiving.  This begins the process of repair. With these many vehicles moving constantly through, body, paint and then inspection car Tetris is our fun way to describe the everyday reality of parking in Allston.  We might go crazy if we didn’t have some fun…especially when there’s limited space, constant planning and being strategic, without incident.

It’s one of the many reasons we have customers make appointments for drop off and pick up.  The game is being played, and we don’t want you waiting on the sidelines!

Looking forward to seeing you at our very own live action game!  Book online or contact Allston Collision Center. Inc, at 617-254-8200 to make an appointment for your vehicle’s evaluation.  We are happy to include you if you like what you see at our operation.

Please note:  Tetris is an official name of a game owned and operated by another company.  Allston Collision Center, Inc. does not own, operate or have any affiliation with this game.