“I always tried to do my best,” said Ralph Johnson Jr., who has spent the last 50 years repairing dented and damaged cars in Iola.
Twin Motors is closing its body shop, “just as soon as we get it all cleaned out,” Johnson, 68, said Thursday afternoon.
He has been fixture at the corner of Miller and State streets since Dale Wichman moved his Ford dealership there from 207 S. Jefferson Ave. in the mid-1960s.
“I remember when there wasn’t a building here,” Johnson said of Twin Motors. “I helped move out here.”
After Wichman, Gary Lassman purchased the dealership and then Tim Henry took over.
“I worked for all three,” Johnson said.
It was with Chig Weiland that he got his start.
Like most boys in the 1950s, Johnson was fascinated by cars. Weiland needed help at his salvage yard northeast of Iola and also someone to go along to car auctions. He found an eager employee in Johnson, who often drove cars home from auctions and then spruced them up for Weiland to sell.
Johnson moved into newer cars when he caught on with Ken Heywood, who had a Pontiac and Cadillac dealership at 204 North St.
“I started out changing oil and polishing cars,” he said, and got a heads-up on body work when Heywood brought in a specialist from Kansas City to give employees a week-long tutorial.
Along about the time Johnson was starting to fit in comfortably, the economy got the better of Heywood and he closed the dealership.
“Someone,” Johnson doesn’t know who, “told Dale (Wichman) about me and he called and asked if I’d like a job.”
Then married, he jumped at the opportunity, but found himself back under the grease rack, the starting point for most new employees in dealerships in those days. He soon moved into mechanic work and not too much later found his niche, doing body work.
“Larry Utley was the shop foreman and I learned a lot from him,” Johnson said.
To show how much times have changed, Johnson noted that soon after he hooked up with Wichman, a new Ford Mustang could be had for $3,600.
“Now they cost $36,000,” he said.
While the body shop is closing at Twin Motors, Johnson said he didn’t intend to leave the work force altogether.
“I don’t have any hobbies, other than working on cars, and I’m in good health and I feel good,” he said. “I’ll find something to do,” although it may not be putting a spit shine on a car’s newly repaired fender.
“Used to be you could work with the metal in a car, straighten out a dent and make it look like new,” he said. “Then, they went to fiberglass and plastic,” which has resulted in parts often being replaced rather than repaired and the subsequent decline in the kind of work at which Johnson excelled.
Twin Motors mainstay retiring
