ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, November 7, 1996 TAG: 9611080018
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: N-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JONATHAN HUNLEY STAFF WRITER
RUSSELL Huffman doesn't know how many cars he's worked on over the years.
"A million wouldn't overdo it," he says, sitting in a chair in the garage he used to run. "A million - probably over a million."
Huffman, 79, opened Huffman's Garage in Garden City in October 1946 - 50 years ago last month.
The establishment looks like standard automotive fare.
It's a white cinder block building with a back yard full of junk cars.
Cigarette butts dot the floor inside. Car parts are everywhere. A buxom, blond bikini-clad woman tells the time on a clock on the wall. An old radio plays country music from WSLC 610 AM. The radio has been on the same station since the garage opened.
Lasting through three generations of Huffmans and countless customers, though, this garage shouldn't be labeled as ordinary.
Huffman, whose father was a carpenter, said he's always been mechanically inclined.
When he was 10 or 12, a friend gave him a Harley-Davidson - in a box.
Huffman reassembled the chopper.
"I didn't know anything about a motorcycle, but I put it together," he said.
Huffman, who also knows a bit about electrical work, worked at Valleydale Packing in Salem before he opened the garage on Yellow Mountain Road.
In those days, Huffman used to buy a lot of wrecks, fix them and sell them.
Sometimes, he'd drive a car to work and come home on the bus with only the license plate. He would have sold the car before the workday ended.
"During the war [World War II], you could sell anything," he said.
Huffman also used to do paint and body work in his back yard before opening the garage.
"It's a wonder I'm still living, with all the paint and dust and dirt I've eaten," he joked.
Huffman decided to go into the mechanic business full time in 1946. He opened the garage and added onto the building in 1950.
The garage also began doing state inspections in 1950. In his heyday, Huffman said, he used to inspect 600 or 700 cars a month.
He also worked on nearly every imaginable auto problem.
"I used to work seven days a week and half the night," Huffman said.
And he was always successful.
"I never did run into anything I could not fix," he said.
Huffman has worked on all kinds of cars. The most expensive ones he's repaired are probably Cadillacs, he said.
He's driven as many cars as he's worked on as well, although he's partial to the General Motors line.
Huffman is quick to point out that cars have changed a lot over the years. He said he used to overhaul a whole engine for what a set of gaskets costs now.
"Been a lot of changes in cars and everything else in 50 years," he said.
The biggest change for the garage, though, has been in its management.
Huffman's son Bob, 57, took over the business in 1979. Russell Huffman retired in April 1980. Bob Huffman's son Jimmy, 35, also works at the garage.
Even though he's retired, Russell Huffman is still involved with the garage.
He lives next door and comes over every day about 1 or 2 p.m. He sits in a chair in front of the desk where the Huffmans answer the telephone and tally up orders at the cash register.
He looks contented sitting there. And although he'll tell you he's glad to be retired from working on cars - "I'm glad I don't have to fool with them no more" - he's still offering automotive advice.
"If you put a filter on it, it'll probably run all right," Russell Huffman told 11-year customer Joe Wozniak when Wozniak brought a car to the garage in August.
Later, the Huffmans decided that Wozniak would have to take the car out back - in other words, junk it. In a field behind the garage, many cars have come to their final resting place.
Wozniak said he used to live in Mount Pleasant, so the garage was convenient. Now he lives in Troutville, but he still comes to Huffman's when he's having car troubles.
The Huffmans also have regular customers from the counties of Franklin and Montgomery.
Some customers have been coming to the garage almost since the place opened.
Howard L. St. Clair of Roanoke County said he's brought his automotive woes to the Huffmans for 45 or 46 years.
"Well, they're good people," he said. "That's a way to sum it up. They're good people. They do good work."
LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: NHAT MEYER/Staff. Russell Huffman (center) startedby CNBHuffman's Garage in Garden City half-a-century ago. Working there
today are Huffman's grandson, Jimmy (left), and son Bob (right).
color.