Chuck Taylor was almost born to work at his father’s store.
Taylormotive opened its doors on Feb. 16, 1959, with Don Taylor, a licensed mechanic, at the helm as its owner.
At the time, the business was located up the road a bit from its current location on Pemberton Avenue, and did all manner of work including custom cars, engine modifications, upholstery, and custom paint.
Not too many years after its opening, Chuck Taylor was born and was put to work at the ripe old age of 11.
“I used to come every day after school and worked until dinner,” recalls the younger Taylor. He would clean up the shop, sweep the floors, dump the garbage, whatever needed to be done.
In a very real sense he learned the business from the ground up.
It seemed he was primed to take over the family business, even completing the automotive program at Carson Graham secondary. But Taylor admits, there was a time he considered going into the field of construction instead, but “I was pretty well entrenched in the business and I had a lot of interest. I had my first car when was 14 years old,” notes Taylor.
That first car was a Plymouth Sport Fury. He would own four of them over the years.
At the time he bought the car it was 10 years old, and he explains that it seemed like an old car then.
“But nowadays a 10-year-old car is not an old car,” he explains. “Cars are lasting a lot longer than they used to; they’re built a lot better; the metals are better; a car 10 years old back then would rust out, you don’t see that today.”
Cars back then performed very well, but some aspects, such as handling, braking and steering weren’t as good.
“Cars today are more refined and they’re a lot more reliable than they used to be. You used to have to do a lot more major engine work on the older cars,” says Taylor.
With his interest in the automotive industry winning out over construction, Taylor completed his mechanics training and apprenticeship through BCIT and got his mechanics licence in 1980.
He has worked at Taylormotive ever since.
Even with decades of experience under his belt, though, Taylor admits: “You’re always learning. That’s the thing in this trade, it’s just ever learning. There’s always something new coming along that’s different and changed and modified.”
He adds with a laugh: “You never know everything and if you think you do, you’re wrong.”
After working as a mechanic at the shop for 10 years, Taylor moved into management and had taken over most of the day-to-day business by 2013 when his father passed away.
It has been a family business all along. His grandfather worked at the shop as a salesman back when they sold Honda motorcycles from 1970-1977. Taylor notes they were the largest Honda dealer in those years, but changing insurance rates and an overall decline in sales led to the decision to stop selling the bikes.
Taylor’s daughter also worked at the store for 10 years before she started a family. On the day of this North Shore News interview, Taylor’s mom was sitting at the front desk. It’s truly a family affair. They’ve also had many longtime technicians. At their last Christmas party, they added up the total number of years of service shared among the longtime technicians and came up with quite a large number: 550 years.
In all that time, much has changed in automotive repair, but the core has stayed the same.
“It’s been 115 years and the way cars have gone they really haven’t changed. You’ve still got a motor, you’ve got the transmission, you’ve got wheels, brakes. They are what they were back in those days, they’ve just improved on it,” he says.
The biggest change right now is the different ways of powering cars, with electric being the newest option.
That said, cars are regularly redesigned, and there’s a lot more involved in repairing a car today, notes Taylor.
“The key to fixing cars today is having the information and the training on it and knowing how to get the information,” explains Taylor. Cars are so electronic now, mechanics and technicians are regularly updating skills and systems, and even tools.
One of the biggest problems cars on the North Shore face are rodents, rats, mice, squirrels, that make nests in warm car engines when the weather turns in the fall. “They start to nibble on the wires and they can create a lot of damage to a car,” reports Taylor.
From dealing with high-end electronics to pesky pests, automotive and collision repair still has a lot to offer for Taylor.
“Every day is a challenge, there’s never a dull moment,” he says with a laugh.
