Ten years before MAACO's founding, Martino had launched AAMCO Transmissions with partner Robert Morgan.

He chose the name MAACO (Martino, Anthony A. and Co.) to instill confidence in potential franchisees who knew of AAMCO’s success.

In October 2008, Driven Brands of Charlotte, North Carolina, a holding company which owns Meineke Car Care Centers, Inc. as well as Econo Lube and other auto service related concerns, purchased Maaco outright from Martino's family after his death in January 2008.

In 1993, a MAACO franchise in Framingham, Massachusetts, won a painting contract for Massachusetts State Police cruisers, which caused controversy after a Boston newspaper reported that some of the MAACO shops involved in the contract were owned wholly or partly by Jane Gnazzo, the wife of Jerold Gnazzo, the state's Registrar of Motor Vehicles.

[3][4] Through the 1980s and 1990s, the company ran a television and radio ad campaign featuring the slogan "Uh oh, better get Maaco".