I was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1956. As a child I ran to my bedroom
window every time a loud car passed by on the streets below. One unusually hot
summer evening I stared out the window, mesmerized by the image of a
Pontiac GTO as it sat at the light waiting to turn left. The car whined and roared
as the driver revved the engine.
In retrospect, the sound of that revving engine was like a large piece of juicy
bait, and I was a famished large-mouthed bass in a raging stream. I was hooked.
I would pursue cars in every way I could, starting with 1/24th scale slot car
racing. I purchased cars, worked on cars, and raced cars well into my early
twenties. To support this habit I had to work to earn money. Somebody told me
once to choose my vocation based on what I love to do. The decision was easy. I
would work on cars for a living.
In 1970, I got my first job working on cars at a gas station in the small town of
Willingboro, New Jersey. I stayed in and around the auto repair industry either as
a technician, a service manager, or an auto service center manager until 1989,
when I started my own business as a tool and equipment dealer. I sold tools in a
territory in New Jersey for about a year, and then decided to move to western
New York to the small city of Jamestown.
One day in late 1990, I walked into a repair shop and saw the owner wringing
his hands, upset because he had to make a call to a customer. He had given the
customer a quote to replace a timing belt in her car. The car, a 1984 Ford Escort
with a four-cylinder engine, was equipped with an interference engine. When the
timing belt breaks with this type of engine, the valves collide with the pistons
and cause major engine damage. This is exactly what had happened to her car.
The technician was terribly distressed because he quoted the customer $225 to
replace the belt when, in fact, the repair would cost the customer more than
$2,000 because the engine had to be replaced.
As I watched this fellow pace the floor, wrenched with anxiety over a phone
call, I had what I like to call an “a-ha!” moment—a realization that there was a
need for a better relationship between the public and the auto repair industry. I
decided right then that a radio show, designed to educate motorists on auto repair
and maintenance, would meet that need. Such a radio show would be a great
public service to those who listened to it. So in January 1991 America’s Car
Show with Tom Torbjornsen was born. The mission statement of the show was
this:
To educate consumers and bridge the gap between the auto repair industry
and motorists in an effort to build understanding between the two and