Growing up in Toronto, Ontario we were fortunate to have a great hi-performance garage in our neighbourhood. Mason's Sunoco was on Islington Avenue north of The Queensway in the west end of the city. Al Mason was a superb hi performance mechanic that just happened to road race Corvettes in the 60's and early 70's. BF Goodrich sponsored the car, the team was very successful. I believe that they raced both B and A production cl***es. Ray Gillies was a mechanic for Al who was also a crew chief for Canadian stock car racing legend, Don Biderman. Gillies also supported Al when they were racing the Corvette. Even the guys that pumped gas were racers. There was always something fast and interesting at Mason's, hot rods, muscle cars, race cars of every description. They were a cl*** bunch of folks who worked there. There was not a better place for a car kid to hang around. What impact did your neighbourhood garage have on you? Mine was long lasting for sure.
Can't believe that no one else was influenced by their neighbourhood garage. Come folks there must be a few stories from back in the day.
I can't give any stories, but I'm a Torontonian too young to remember the days where a gas station would include a performance shop (at least in an urban area) so I'd love to hear any more stories you have of local hotrodding or gurus.
Also in the GTA, the gas station was an ESSO that a couple of my buddys worked at......got to use the hoist and tire machine....That was great times for us.
Here on Indy's southside we had Reddings Shell Station. They would let a few of the locals use their lifts and equipment to prepare their cars for weekend racing. The racers would have Redding Shell lettered on the cars in water color paint and wash it off after the races.
As soon as I turned 16 and got my drivers license I was hired part time, then full time at my neighborhood Texaco station owned and run by an old timer named Ed Brennan. It was just a regular "fillin' station" with two bays w/ lifts and a car wash mechanism that came down around the car to soap and rinse it. We did tune ups,oil changes,brakes,tires, exhaust,etc. Ed never wanted to get into big stuff like motor jobs. On a good day, we'd do 25+ oil changes. As a kid, my first job there was to pump gas, check the oil and clean the front AND back windsheild; fix flat tires; and take customers cars to the inspection station when they were due. I'd run parts, make service calls and drive customers home or deliver their cars. Every once in awhile we'd get a sports car,hotrod,or some other modified type of car in, but Ed just treated them as customers.No big deal. This was 1962,so most young guys ,like me, had '50's cars or trucks fixed up with whatever we could afford. At 25 cents a gallon,I still had all I could do to keep gas in the tank. I was making 95 cents an hour. I could write a small book on all that went on at that garage. Good times and good friends, a lot of whom are no longer with us.
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