Italian entrepreneur Lorenzo Dal Maso hopes to restore the confidence and reputation of a pioneer in the professional car wash industry.
The once darkened Ceccato factory, which closed in 2012, has been reopened by new ownership with goals to return to peak production levels.
“It’s necessary to believe in a company like this, which still has a name known around the world,” Dal Maso said. “Let’s start with realistic goals, but the intention is to grow and return to the levels of production that the company had until the early 21st century.
Ceccato, an Italian manufacturer of automatic car wash systems with pre-World War II beginnings, was once one of the largest manufacturers of car wash systems in the world.
EARLY HISTORY
Dr. Pietro Ceccato founded the eponymously named company in 1936. Ceccato, who was trained as a chemist and pharmacist at the University of Padua, had a keen interest in engineering and design. While he initially planned to succeed his father in the family’s pharmacy business, his other interests led him to pursue a career in manufacturing.
His first company was FIPA (Italian Factory Guns and Air Brushes), which produced guns for spraying paint and lubrication. His second company, Ceccato SpA, began producing furnace burners, and then equipment for service stations.
Ceccato SpA’s growth created a company town that was eventually named Alte Ceccato, a village that is still recognized today. (Ceccato is today headquartered in nearby Vicenza, approximately 60 kilometers west of Venice.) Housing, stores and a church were all built for the workers, which employed hundreds of people by the early 1940s.
Ceccato had a passion for motorcycles. In 1934, he won a national championship in the 500 cc engine category. Prior to his untimely death at the age of 51 in 1956, Ceccato began pursuing one of his passions by experimenting in the design of motorcycles. By 1961, Ceccato was producing more than 60,000 motorcycles per year.
MODERNIZATION AND GROWTH
After the founder’s death, ownership transferred to the Lamb and Goat families. The new owners decided to focus the company in the areas of air compressors, service station equipment and a growing line of car wash equipment. The car wash division began in 1957 and production was quickly escalating. While the history is incomplete, Ceccato likely created the first automatic car wash production line, at least the first of any significant output.
By the 1970s, with another change in ownership, Ceccato began to aggressively expand worldwide with sales offices in the United States and Brazil. By the 1980s, car washing had become the dominant product line. Ownership again changed, but manufacturing and sales continued to grow throughout the 1990s with outposts in Germany, Poland and Spain. In 1999, the company acquired Daerg Italia, a leading manufacturer of self-service washing stations. (Daerg continues in the car wash business as the chemical manufacturer Daerg Chimica S.n.c.) Soon thereafter, in 2001, the company opened a new modern plant that remains one of the largest car wash factories in the world. Throughout the ‘90s and early into the 21st century, Ceccato enjoyed a global reputation for innovation and quality, and steadily built one of the largest distribution and service networks in the industry.
THE ECONOMIC CRISIS AND A NEW CECCATO
Like many companies, particularly in Italy, the economic crisis hit Ceccato exceptionally hard. Demand from Ceccato’s core petroleum retailing customers began dropping in 2009. By 2012, production was halted and the company, unable to find a new buyer, eventually filed bankruptcy.
Soon afterward, Giuseppe Zanetti, a longtime advisor to the company, was appointed liquidator. Fortunately, in 2013, Lorenzo Dal Maso, a successful Italian entrepreneur, emerged to purchase the company. Many of the company’s former employees, who numbered more than 1,000 at Ceccato’s peak, were immediately put back to work.
Dal Maso was previously the chief executive of La Triveneta Cavi, a leading supplier of low- and medium-voltage cables with sales of more than 400 million euros in 25 countries and a staff of 600. In addition to his own familiarity with technology and manufacturing, he selected Zanetti to serve as the company’s president.
“It was hard for everyone to think about losing a company like this that has made the history of this community, built dreams and careers for so many people and families,” Dal Maso said.
PLANS FOR THE FUTURE
With his familiarity of Ceccato’s past, Zanetti is confident that Ceccato has a bright future.
“We have a globally recognized brand, and we will be successful by offering the right products, at the right price, with the best service,” he said.
Zanetti expects for approximately 100 car wash units to be sold in the new Ceccato’s first year, compared to 400 in 2011, and annual production of 300 units by year three.
As a symbol of this confidence, Ceccato recently announced the acquisition of Fia 29, formerly Ryko Italia, a car wash manufacturing firm once partially owned by Ryko Manufacturing of the United States. Ceccato was particularly interested in Fia 29’s international distributor network and is now actively integrating that network into its own.
This past June, Ceccato returned to the United States with the opening of Ceccato Carwash, Inc. in Miami, Florida. Edoardo Marcomini is the CEO of this newest branch, with aggressive plans for growing Ceccato’s sales and distribution network.
“Our initial focus in not merely on the sales of car wash units, but to develop close partnerships with car wash distributors and operators,” Marcomini said. “We want to steadily and solidly rebuild Ceccato’s reputation for high quality, great customer satisfaction and extraordinary product innovation in the North American market.”
