After a 47- year career in collision repair, Monte Rollag is rolling down the garage doors at Westside Auto Rebuild and selling off his

tools.

The shop will re-open as Serious Auto Body after a new coat of paint and a switch in ownership to Dee Baskerville.

“I’m done,” Rollag said last week with a smile.

“I won’t miss the work, but I’ll miss the people,” he said of his transition into retirement.

Rest and relaxation is not what Rollag has in mind for the next phase in his life. He plans to stay busy with various projects around his home.

The shop will probably stay about the same after his auto-tenure is over, he said, except the name and owner will change.

Monte’s uncle, Laf Rollag, started the Oak Harbor business in 1955.

A Portland native, Rollag moved to Oak Harbor with his family when his father, Leonard Rollag, became part owner of the old Ford store on the corner of Highway 20 and Barrington Drive, along with Wes Maylor and Mel Boyar.

Rollag’s uncle soon followed his brother’s move from Portland in 1955 and set up shop in a brand new building on South Beeksma Drive built by Jim Flowers, Ed Pasek and Thorp Patterson. And the space still houses Westside Auto Rebuild.

After graduating from Oak Harbor High School, Rollag went to work for his uncle sanding cars and sweeping the floors, working his way up and gaining more responsibilities as he learned the collision repair trade. Rollag credits his uncle for his auto body education.

Following his uncle’s retirement, Rollag bought the shop in 1982. As cars changed, the equipment changed.

“Cars change every year, how they’re designed and how they’re put together,” he said. New styles and gadgets required new tools and created a never-ending learning curve.

Air bags, power windows and other modern features kept Rollag busy staying up-to-date with the most current repair methods.

Sometimes the low-tech fix provided the best and least expensive answer to minor cosmetic damage, he said, recounting a common scenario where a scraped car would come into his shop with a smear of paint marring a side panel or two.

Other shops would strip the panels and repaint the car for a pretty penny, but Rollag often used a different method: Fifteen minutes of scrubbing with a special solution, and the mark was gone.

The free favor provided plenty of return customers, he said.

Rollag pointed to one of his first big purchases after taking the reigns from his uncle. The Car-O-liner, he explained, repairs bent auto frames. Two dictionary-sized, navy-colored Car-O-liner manuals sit stacked on a corner of the large machine, and contain the correct dimensions for re-shaping frames of all makes and models.

And Monte still uses some of his uncle’s tools, like the bull’s eye pick, which looks like a pair of antique ice tongs. Rollag uses the pick to pop out small dents and dings.

But not all body shops use these kinds of old tools, he said. Each mechanic has their own repair style.

“Not everybody fixes them the same way,” he said. “Every one has their own feel for doing things to fix the car properly.”

A large vice, mounted to the shop workbench for as long as Rollag can remember, probably came from his uncle’s first auto shop in Portland, but there’s no way to know because it’s not dated. The ancient dark metal vice appears in sharp contrast to some of the newer equipment, such as his plasma torch.

The variety of vintage to modern-style tools allowed Rollag to work on any car that rolled through the garage. He doesn’t favor one make over another, but said old Ford Mustangs are the easiest to work on.

The tools and trade-secrets he acquired from his uncle provided

Rollag with an opportunity to cultivate a devoted clientele.

But now he’s ready to pass the torch and spend a little more time at home with his wife, and high school sweetheart, Donna.

Dee Baskerville, who also owns Serious Auto Body in Freeland and Autohound Collision Center in Seattle, will take over the shop in

January.

Baskerville plans to freshen up the old building with a new sign, paint and new equipment, although he’s hoping to buy some of Rollag’s collection of collision tools, including a few old-time, low-tech relics from the garage’s beginning.

“Some of the old stuff is so nostalgic,” he said.