Syrian immigrant Mike Vartanian is easing into retirement, after 32 years of building Mike’s Foreign Auto into one of the South Bay’s most trusted auto repair garages. Last Saturday, he held a farewell barbecue at his Hermosa Beach garage for his long time customers.
But Mike’s Foreign Auto will live on at a new location, as a partnership between Vartanian and Honduran immigrant Darwin Alvarado, Vartanian’s protégé for the past two decades.
The new Mike’s Foreign Auto is at 2700 W. Artesia Blvd., in Redondo Beach. Vartanian plans to continue working part time for one more year.
Vartanian and his wife Margo moved to Redondo Beach with sons Sarkis and Chant and daughter Hilda in 1979.
“Our children were reaching military age, and as Christian’s we didn’t believe in the fighting that was going on,” Margo said.
With money Mike started saving when he began repairing cars at age 13, the couple bought the Redondo Beach home they still live in and the corner at Artesia Boulevard and Prospect Avenue, where their garage and Buck Poppo’s Auto repair were located for over three decades.
Mike said his favorite cars are old Mercedes. He owns seven of them, including a 1972 350SL sports car.
“That’s the last year they had cast iron engines, no aluminum. They are slower. Their maximum RPM is 4,000, but they lasted longer than the new ones.”
Margo also drives a Mercedes, with a license plate that reads Hi [Armenian] M [Me] Yes [I am].
His only criticism of the old Mercedes is their air conditioning. “Mercedes has never been good at air conditioning,” he said.
No one has ever brought him a car he couldn’t fix.
“I fix them in my dreams. The next morning, I fix them at the garage,” he said.
Like his mentor, Alvarado came to the United States to escape the turmoil in his native country.
Upon arriving in the U.S. in 1989, he went to work in construction, where he met Mike’s son Sarkis. In Honduras, Alvarado had repaired auto radiators. Under Mike’s tutelage, he expanded his knowledge to all aspects of auto repair.
“Mike is like my dad. He never gets angry, but if I don’t do a job right, he’s disappointed. He taught me to do it right, or don’t do it,” Alvarado said. ER
