Jim White Smoothly Carburates Old Friends and New Spaces

There is something avatar-like about an Automotive Service Technician as beloved as Jim White. In the swirling transactional storm of an auto repair shop, a guy like Jim is a calming still-point of trust and familiarity, a beckoning porch light in a blizzard. Until recently, these very qualities made Jim a sought-after fixture at Village Automotive, the long-time local garage hidden like a Himalayan monastery up the hill and behind Montecito Village Grocery. Jim was at “Village” for just a short while, but in that time he made a real impression – and a lot of friends – what the unenlightened call customers. They loved him. They love him still. 

But Jim’s fanbase of chatty automotive pals will seek him in vain at the newly christened Village Automotive / Stress-Free Auto Care^®. After a brief stint there of 46 years, Jim has moved on, abruptly closing a personal chapter that began when the guy was just 16.

“I started in 1979 working for Roy Jensen,” he says of his former workplace. Jim’s speaking voice combines the precise enunciation of an engineer and a vocal timbre that makes every utterance warm with enthusiasm.

“Roy owned the gas station, which was a Chevron station then, and he owned the shop in the back. He opened it, I believe, in 1965 or ‘66,” Jim says ruminatively. “We got a card when he originally opened.” We’re on the phone and I hear Jim turn to retrieve something. “It says ‘November 1966,’” he pronounces carefully, clearly reading something. Yeah, Jim still has the actual mailer his family received in 1966 announcing Jensen’s new endeavor – a business that would become Jim’s second home for nearly half a century. It seems Village Automotive meant something to Jim. 

“I was always going up to the shop with my mom or my dad when they dropped off the car for repair. And growing up I always kinda loved to tinker on engines,” he says. One fateful California summer, Jim’s no-nonsense 1970s mother gently threw down the gauntlet. “My mom’s like, ‘Okay, you’re 16; time to go out and get a job.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh my god. It’s summertime! I don’t wanna get a job!” This seasonal mom/teen exchange has taken various forms through the ages and is approximately as old as summer itself. 

“So I talked to Roy. ‘Is there something I could do at the gas station or at the shop or something?’ And Roy says ‘I’ll get you into the shop.’ All the guys there were great. The manager there at the time was an old mechanic named Ruben Martinez. He was very knowledgeable and he taught me.” What was Montecito like back then? Jim’s reply is hesitant and wistful. “Everybody knew everybody back then. And you’d sometimes see people riding horses down East Valley Road.”

Nearly 50 years on, Jim and Village Automotive / Stress-Free Auto Care^® have parted company, Jim’s reputation for deep automotive expertise and old school fairness intact. He’s happily landed at a grease-dappled atelier with its own storied past. The place is called Sixteen Ten Montecito Garage. A few of the area’s octane-faithful will grin ruefully on learning the property’s former name; J&S East Valley Garage. 

The Last Independent Garage in Montecito

“Every time I passed J&S,” says Brian Milosavljevic, “I was like ‘there’s no chance!’ It’s just such a special place. Classic cars, that’s what I do. It’s vintage, it’s got this history, it’s Montecito. And so when the opportunity presented itself…” 

From 1962 to 2012, under the leadership of Jay and Betty Roach, J&S East Valley Garage became the galactic center of the area’s avid motorsports community, Jay and his Top Fuel dragster pilot Arley Langlo taking internal combustion as far as they could, Arley and co. later setting speed records at places like El Mirage and the Bonneville Salt Flats. J&S was both a full-service repair shop and an autosport-grade machine shop, where local racers had cylinder heads resurfaced and engine blocks welded, automotive alchemist Jay Roach machining brute metal to do his bidding in the name of controlled explosive thrust. 

Now Brian Milosavljevic runs the place and has renamed it Sixteen Ten Montecito Garage. He’s still getting his head around the fact. About 7 feet tall, soft spoken, and radiating gratitude, Brian is showing me around the premises. He’d been looking for a place but never imagined this. 

“Power hone, parts washer, band saw, flywheel grinder…” Brian points every which way, naming stuff. The place is redolent with industry, cryptic machinery and tools arrayed and jostling for position. “It’s all totally functional,” Brian says to my stunned expression. “It’s been meticulously maintained through the years. Paul Madsen worked here for 47 years and still comes by every day at eleven thirty. He’s a wealth of information. He basically installed a lot of this stuff with Jay.” In his time Madsen also got his hands on and optimized blocks, building one engine that drank nitro methane and set a few speed records. (Note: this newspaper featured Paul in a debris flow-related series beginning August 27, 2020.) 

Built in 1919 (!) the garage nestles into the verdant corner of E. Valley and Live Oaks Roads like an organic feature. The place has hosted both the horse & buggy set, and over-caffeinated Bonneville land speed aeronauts working in the dark by lamplight. From 1962 J&S became the premier Central Coast epicenter for custom machining, engine overhauls, and high-performance race builds. It was a world Jay was reluctant to leave, to say the very least – but the legendary local racing figure and beloved dad, husband, and grandpa got the checkered flag in 2012 

Vanessa Guajardo is Jay and Betty’s granddaughter. “[The previous owner of J&S] took over the shop January first, 2012, and grandpa passed away January 17th.” Vanessa is Chief of Staff at U.S. Capital Global, a new mom, and an organizational tornado. She has produced a beautiful and madly annotated 40-page (and counting) document detailing the history of the parcel at 1610 E. Valley Rd. How thorough is it? Well, the title is 1610 E. Valley Road: A Documented History – from Chumash to the Present Day. Okay? For Vanessa, it’s personal. 

“My strongest memory of grandpa… my mom would drive me out to their house every single morning, Monday through Friday. And he would come out and kneel in the driveway and pick me up and carry me into the house – for years and years and years. He was just such a lovely man. We were just so lucky.” Now Brian Milosavljevic has embraced the rich narrative of the place, and of the family that made its name. 

“I understand the history,” Brian says with some feeling. “I’m from Cambridge, Massachusetts, but I lived in Los Angeles for a really long time. It’s been a transition into a small-town community, especially one as beautiful as Montecito. I’m leaning into this idea of serving rather than coming in hot, if you will.” Betty Roach walks in and Brian introduces us. Simultaneously wry and gracious, Betty has about her a mild aura of mischief. She feels good about the new proprietor.

“I couldn’t ask for another person other than Brian here,” she says. “I mean, just everything about him. I’ll keep working on trying to find something bad about him.” 

I ask Brian about Jim White.

“I knew that he worked at Village for 46 years. He had a solid customer base and (former J&S/current 1610 mechanic) Tommy spoke really highly of him. I invited Jim, Betty, Vanessa, and Vanessa’s husband over to my house for dinner, and that was where I saw who he was as a human being – how he cared for his late wife, how he truly helps customers. He’ll drive to San Ynez and bring food to somebody just out of surgery. He’s a selfless, truly kind man. All that coupled with the way he carried himself with that other business after 46 years. That was his home for 46 years! How hard is that to leave?”

Horsepower

Jim’s early Village Automotive memories have an equine component. “On the back side of the old Village Automotive, which is now Montecito Water District, there was a ranch house and they had horses. At lunchtime I’d climb up on our wall, the horse would come over, I’d jump up on the horse’s back and we would just walk slowly around the little pasture.” Ah, the salad days of rural Montecito. 

When Jim wasn’t on horseback doing the slow-mo John Wayne thing, he was back in the service bay avidly mastering car repair, accruing both deep expertise and the love of a community. 46 years. Jim White has a new home now, a new in-house family to which he’s bringing the essence of those decades of joy and friendship and intake manifold gasket replacement. He misses his friends. If you knew Jim at Village, he’d love to see you at Montecito Garage. Articulating that is not so easy.

“And it’s like, it’s … you know…” Jim White is never at an actual loss for words. He just has so many crowding the exit it can take a minute. Forty-six years at Village Automotive formed him and 1610 Montecito Garage is prepared to embrace Jim’s legacy. “Well,” Jim says of his time at Village, “where does somebody see a customer come in and hug their mechanic? That always made me feel good. I’m just happy that I’m still in Montecito.”