History

Owner Ben Honcoop moved to Salmon Arm in the early 70`s with his parents and worked on their Dairy Farm in Silver Creek.  In 1973 Ben purchased a Ford Louisville from Jacobsen Ford in Salmon Arm and began working as a long haul trucker.

In 1974 he purchased a dump box and began hauling gravel locally.  A few years later Ben was ready for a new challenge and decided to start up his own towing company; he purchased three tow trucks from local gas stations (a `66 Ford F-500, a ’68 Dodge D-500, and a ’69 Chevy 1 Ton)  and in 1977 he began working out of ‘Marks Superior Service and Ben`s Towing’ located on the highway in town. (This location is now home to Windmill Meats).

Having no luck trying to sell his dump truck he decided to keep it and turn it into a Heavy Duty Tow Truck. He bought a used back end and converted the dump truck himself.

In 1979 Fuel service was added and Superior Service became known as ‘Turbo Gas Station’.  By 1979 Ben had to retire the ’69 Chevy and replaced it with a new 78′ Chev that he assembled himself.

1980 was a big year for Ben’s Towing as the business was relocated to its own 1/2 acre property with a brand new shop on the west end of town.  Ben rented this land until 1982 when he was able to purchase the property and finally call it his own.  In 1983 he added a Chevy C-60 5 Ton wrecker to his fleet and  business continued to grow over the next 7 years.

In February of 1990 tragedy struck when Ben’s shop burned to the ground in a terrible shop fire.  Ben’s Mother-in-law, Shirley, had been working as his secretary at the time and was heroically pulled from the flames by one of Ben’s employees – thankfully, neither suffered life-threatening injuries.  Ben and his crew along with his Dad dismantled the shop by hand over the next several months while running the business out of an ATCO trailer.

Six months later Ben’s Towing was operating out of a new shop and back to normal.

1990 saw the addition of a brand new Dodge 3500 4×4 Diesel Tow Truck and 7 years later the addition of his first International Deck Truck.  The need for Heavy Duty Recovery Equipment kept growing and in 2001 Ben purchased a 35 Ton Tandem Hydraulic Wrecker.  (1995 Ford Aeromax 9000) with a custom back end purchased from Russell Truck.

2006 saw the addition of a 40 Ton Kenworth Tandem Wrecker and just two years later he added to his fleet again by purchasing a brand new 26 foot Tandem Volvo Deck Truck.  In 2012 Ben added an extended cab 5 Ton Deck Truck for improved customer roadside service.

Since 1976 Ben’s Towing and Auto Wrecking has been serving the Shuswap and area with pride and dedication to customer service.  We are thankful for being supported for so long and look forward to many more years of service.

From all of us at Ben's