Auto Repair
Bothwell Automotive
The auto repair business runs on trust. When something goes wrong under the hood, most people don’t know what’s wrong — they only know they need someone honest enough to tell them, and skilled enough to fix it. For more than four decades, Gil and Steve Bothwell have been that shop for South Bay drivers.
The brothers have been working on cars together since 1986, when they joined forces at their Earl Street location in Torrance. What they built there goes well beyond a service center. Customers describe something closer to a relationship — one that in many cases spans generations. “We get a lot of families, and friends of families,” said Todd Harding, who has worked alongside the Bothwells for two decades. “You just watch them through the years, coming in as kids, and it’s like, ‘Ah, you are a driver now!'”
Part of what sets the Bothwells apart is a passion for cars that extends well beyond the shop floor — the brothers also work on race cars, and longtime customers say that enthusiasm is exactly what you feel when you bring in your vehicle. It translates into a level of diagnostic precision and mechanical care that dealerships rarely match, often at a fraction of the price.
But Harding will tell you the real secret is simpler than that. “Basically it’s just about being honest with the customer, never trying to oversell, give them what they need, and standing behind the work,” he said. “If you do those things, people are happy to come back.”
And come back they do — from across the South Bay, year after year. “I get people who live a ways away who come to town and set it up just so they can bring their car to us,” Harding said.
Bothwell Automotive
20730 Earl St.
Torrance
(310) 371-5712
