After 39 years in business, Wheeler’s Garage in Southold is closing up shop. Owner Dick Wheeler, 72, is ready to retire.
“I’m old,” he says with a chuckle. “It’s time. I want to spend time with my grandkids, maybe do a little traveling, see some of the country.”
Wheeler and his wife Laureen opened the business in August 1977 as a full service station. In 1985 when the county instructed them to replace the old fuel tanks, they declined and became strictly a garage.
Although Wheeler’s has been in Southold for nearly four decades, the business began in the 1930s as Joe’s Garage in East Marion. Dick’s father Robert Joseph Wheeler opened the station and ran the business first in East Marion and later at Willow Hill in Southold. In 1962 he built the building on Route 48 in Southold and ran it until Dick Wheeler took over in 1977.
A look around the office and waiting room – complete with recycled van seats used as couches – is like a step back in time. There are photos and memorabilia covering every inch of the walls. Model cars and trucks, many that were gifts from customers, line the shelves. Family photos, pictures of remarkable restorations and old signs from Joe’s Garage are just a few of the many reminders of Wheeler’s long history.
The business of auto repair has changed dramatically over the years, but Wheeler has adapted to the new technology with little fanfare.
“At first it was hard but then I got used to it,” Wheeler said. “There was a lot of trial and error early on, but you talk to other people, asked them what they found out and go on from there. The newer cars are all computerized so you have to have a scan and the codes just give you a general idea of what could be wrong; it doesn’t tell you exactly. Then you have to narrow it down. The older cars were much simpler. Now I do a lot of reading, look things up on the Internet; find out somebody had the same problem and try this or that.”
There’s a special place in Wheeler’s heart for old cars. His first car was a 1927 Model A Ford, and he speaks affectionately about his favorite restoration: a 1955 Chevy he bought for $25 and spent about 30 years working on.
“I bought it and put it out in the barn. Over the years as I found parts, I’d restore it.”
If you’ve driven by Wheeler’s, you’ve most likely noticed the classic cars always parked out front. “He knows the old cars; that’s what he grew up with,” Laureen said. “Very few repair shops out here will deal with the old cars. All the antique auto clubs send their members here.”
Soft-spoken, with twinkly eyes and an easy smile, Wheeler has the hands of a hard-working man. He began helping his father out at Joe’s Garage when he was only 11 years old. A volunteer firefighter for 54 years, he remembers times when he was hardly ever at home.
“When I was with AAA, I’d get calls in the middle of the night to go start someone’s car. They’d call you up at 2 in the morning,” says Wheeler.
His wife Laureen, who has been the bookkeeper at Wheeler’s for the past 39 years, agrees. “He was never home. It was a lot of hours. Weekends, Sundays.” The Wheelers have a daughter in upstate New York and a son in North Carolina. “We want to spend time being grandparents,” says Laureen.
After a lifetime of working with cars, Wheeler has many stories. One of his favorites is about a car tow several years ago.
“We got a call from a woman in Nassau Point. She’d walked outside and said to herself ‘Where’d my car go?’ Well, a cesspool cover had caved in and her car went right in nose first. So I towed it out and took it down to Tidy Car where they put it up on a lift and washed all the stuff off it and it was fine.”
The building’s new owners, whom the Wheelers declined to identify, will not take over the business and to the best of their knowledge won’t be opening another garage.
SoutholdLOCAL photos by Katharine Schroeder
