If you’ve ever lived in an apartment, or in some other arrangement where you didn’t have access to a space to work on your car, you’ve likely had the same idea that Ray Woolley had: a self-service garage, where the garage owner provides the space and tools for rent, while you provide the labor. Woolley discussed his idea rather in depth for an article in the November 1951 issue of Mechanix Illustrated.
Would an idea like this work today? Of course not. You’d have lawyers swarming on you in an instant, and if you managed to fend them off, you’d have insurance rates through the roof. I would like to know, though, how long Woolley made a go at his idea. However long Ray Woolley’s Self-Service Garage did make it, we know that it doesn’t exist today: a Mercado Garibaldi occupies the building today at 1051 W. Washington Blvd. in Los Angeles.
