Jack's Auto Repair

In my teen years I worked at a place called "John's Supertest" on Waterloo Avenue in Guelph. It was the last gas station on the way out of town, just up the road from the "Manor", the last strip joint on the way out of town.

I got to remembering this when I was researching the post about Jimmie Johnson's green racer.

I remember "Mountain Green". In fact, a couple of times I came close to buying a car in Mountain Green.

There was a place in town called Howes and Reeves. They were by that time the "American Motors" dealer. American Motors was the flailing entity run by Mitt Romney's dad at the time, and they flailed until Chrysler bought them out, mainly to get their paws on the Jeep brand, a few years later.

But for a few months back in the late 60's Howes and Reeves had a couple of used cars on the lot that caught my eye. Both were Mountain Green in color.

Both were Chevy Bel Air 2-door post coupes. One was a 327 four speed. The other was a 427 four speed.

I spent a lot of time figuring out how to stretch my $1.20 an hour pay packet to get one of those cars, preferably the 427.

Eventually I figured out I wasn't going to get there from here, which probably marked the onset of my first serious bout of clinical depression.

A year later I was eye-balling a 69 Nova 396/375 at Barry Cullen Chev-Olds. Brand new. Mountain Green with a black vinyl roof. Bench seat, radio delete, 4:11's in the back.

By then I was working full time at John's Supertest. The Nova priced out at just under four grand. Alas, I still couldn't make it work.

Back to the depression. Back to pumping gas 60 hours a week and driving  a 67 Bel Air wagon with a 283 powerglide.

Those were bleak times.

But around the back of John's Supertest we rented out the service bays to Jack, proprietor of Jack's Auto Repair.

When I got hired on at John's the proprietor (John) took me on a tour of Jacks Auto Repair. Jack wasn't in at the time, and since that was the middle of the afternoon and this was a car repair shop I suppose at some level that should have been a tip-off.

Nevertheless John gave me a major spiel about how Jack was the best mechanic in town and I should refer business to Jack whenever possible. He reverently opened the drawers of Jack's tool box to reveal the neatly-ordered wrenches and sockets.

"You can tell a good mechanic by how he takes care of his tools" John solemnly intoned.

So I was pre-disposed to think Jack was some kind of mechanical miracle worker.

And the cars he had for sale seemed to bear that out. A 64 Ford Galaxy with a 406 four speed, an ultra-rare combo that would be worth a fortune today. Had the engine block tied off to the frame with a length of chain.

A 390 four speed Mustang. Asking only $1800.

Over the next six months or so I figured out a couple of things.

Jack was rarely in his shop. He was more often in court fighting small claims cases over cars he hadn't fixed.

When he was in the shop I never saw him working on a car. He and his sidekick "Rubber" would while away the hours drinking beer, which they kept in the toilet tank to keep cold.

I would see cars coming in on the back of tow-trucks, sit in Jack's shop for three months, and leave on the end of tow-trucks, after much ill will had transpired between Jack and the car owner.

Only years later did it occur to me that John was getting kick-backs on the money Jack was wheedling out of customers while not fixing their cars.

That was really depressing...