Wally Brenn…

By Kalona News

Joetown Garage is more than just a place to service cars: it’s a local landmark.

Wally Brenneman, present owner and operator, took over the business from his father, Henry, in 1956.

Wally’s father bought the shop in 1924 from Joe Gingerich. Gingerich had built the shop for his sons in 1919. This year, the shop is celebrating its 75th year in business.

Joetown Garage sold gasoline until 1990.

“With the new DNR regulations in the handling of gasoline, it wasn’t feasible for a small station to sell gas,” he said.

Joetown Garage’s logo includes the VW symbol. According to Wally, the VW business was very strong from the mid 1960’s to early 1980’s.

“We still do VW work here,” he said. “However, after the solid years when the VW was the hot item on the car market, we expanded to Japanese-made cars as they became more popular.

“We service just about anything, though,” he added. “We used to do some tractor repair until the VW got popular. We haven’t gone back to it since.”

Brenneman added that he still gets a steady flow of customers.

“Our main customers come from a 30-mile radius around Joetown,” he said. “We have always been in a position to do heavy repairs as far as engine work goes. Gas/convenience stations don’t do those types of repairs anymore.”

Brenneman keeps two people on his staff. They are his nephew, Scott Swartzendruber, and a University of Iowa student, Josiah Ives.

He also has a collection toy cars, several old oil business signs and some classic cars in the lot around the garage itself.

“Having grown up in this business, it was easy for me to be come enthused about toy cars and the classic cars I have on the lot,” he said. “I have accumulated the toy cars over the years. Some of them are new and some of them are old.”

While being interviewed recently by the News, Wally had a 1973 Delta 88 in his garage. He also has a 1967 Corvair.

“I do buy and sell a few ‘special interest autos’,” he said, referring to the name of a magazine he receives on classic cars.

One of his best classic car examples is the Joetown Garage wrecker. The wrecker is a 1961 Willy’s Jeep, which he bought in 1963.

“We still use that jeep for service calls,” he said.

Brenneman is also very willing to help out members of the Joetown community, especially Iowa Mennonite School.

“They borrow some of my tools and I give some advice to their shop classes,” he said. “I do have a student working in my shop right now that is working on a Mazda rotary engine.”