For 55 years, Peter Landsman has been a Volvo guy.
Recruited by the Swedish car company as a 20-year-old mechanic, he was sent overseas as the brand expanded its global markets, landing in Hamilton, Ont., for a decade and eventually Victoria, where he spent the past 30 years with his son, Robert, operating Landsman Motors, a modest and busy shop on Store Street at the foot of Chinatown.
Here, the father-son duo fixed Volvos — thousands of them and generations of owners — catering to the collectors, enthusiasts and diehards of the brand.
Landsman was so good and so generous and accommodating with his time and service that nobody wanted to take their Volvos anywhere else.
Legendary Canadian folk singer Garnet Rogers, who drove his 1991 Volvo through the U.S. and Canada on frequent tours, didn’t trust anyone else with his Volvo — at one time having it towed more than 1,200 kilometres from North Carolina to Hamilton, where Landsman had his first shop.
Rogers put more than one million miles on a couple of his Volvos over the years, and frequently brought his cars to Victoria when he was touring the west for Landsman’s loving care.
“He didn’t seem to trust anyone else,” Landsman said with a laugh as he reflected on closing his Landsman Motors shop at the end of the month.
“But we’ve had so many great customers over the years, and I’ve enjoyed them all,” he said.
Time and technology changes in newer vehicles signalled to the Landsmans it was time to hang up their wrenches and shutter their modest garage.
“I’ve been making a living with Volvo for 55 years and I’ve been OK, but I don’t recommend it to my grandson,” Peter Landsman, 75, said.
“The future for the little shops is probably over.”
Robert added: “It’s getting to be dealers-only [for repairs now]. The future is all electric and you just can’t afford to make all the investments needed to [take care] of cars.”
Peter Landsman’s long association with the Swedish-made vehicles is impressive, especially since he was born in Czechoslovakia.
Landsman escaped the Eastern Bloc country when the Soviet Union invaded in 1968. He was able to leave as student bus trips were still allowed, going through Poland, East Germany and into Sweden, where he asked for asylum at a Stockholm police station.
Landsman had to leave his then-girlfriend — and now wife of 53 years, Pavla — behind in Czechoslovakia.
But he was determined to get her out, despite the student trips being cancelled and the borders sealed.
They hatched a plan. Pavla would go to a town in then-Yugoslavia (now Croatia), where the passage of Czechs was scrutinized, but allowed.
Landsman packed up an old Saab he bought “for $20 bucks” — he couldn’t afford his first Volvo just yet — and went to rescue her.
“I didn’t think the old car was going to make it,” said Landsman. “She had told me the town where she would be and after some trouble I found her.
“I smuggled her out in the trunk of the car. I was lucky the border guard in Yugoslavia was an older guy and didn’t bother checking the trunk. The car was so low, I was thinking about driving right under the gate. But [the guard said] ‘You are Czech? We are brothers.’
“She would stay in the car until we came to each border — Austria, West Germany, Denmark and Sweden — and she would go back into trunk because she did not have a passport.”
Arriving in Sweden, the couple went to a police station where Pavla asked for and received asylum. They were married and had three children, including two daughters. The entire family, including six grandchildren, all live in Greater Victoria.
Landsman got a job in Sweden’s Volvo factory, then at one of the country’s largest dealerships before heading to Houston, Texas, where his brief military duty in Czechoslovakia caused an issue with immigration.
Volvo told him a mechanic was needed in Hamilton, and in 1978 they moved. The couple took a ski trip to Whistler in in 1991 and got a coupon for a two-night stay in Victoria at the Empress Hotel.
“I said: ‘Wow, a great deal at a beautiful place,’ ” said Landsmen.
That same weekend, the couple were so impressed by Victoria that they visited a real estate office, found a home on Triangle Mountain in Colwood and bought it a few months later. The Landsmans still live there today.
“It seemed like every second car we saw was a Volvo in Victoria — this was Volvo heaven for me,” said Landsman.
He worked briefly for a dealership, but realized he wasn’t earning enough money for his growing family.
They found a boarded-up garage in Chinatown and the couple rolled up their sleeves and whipped it into working order, but “we had no customers at all.”
But Pavla was undeterred. She found a small print shop on Johnson Street and had flyers made — “I’m the Volvo Guy … just moved here.”
“She was driving all over Victoria putting flyers under the wipers of every single Volvo she saw — at the university, all the shopping malls,” said Landsman. “I got so much work right away and I was so busy I asked my son [Robert] to visit. He fell in love with Victoria and moved.”
Generations of customers have followed, enamoured with the bigger, boxy older models of the 1970s and 1980s known for their solid builds and safety in crash tests, and for being reliable.
Landsman said the wagons almost became as popular as Volkswagen vans among younger people.
However, he said, brand loyalty is slipping among all vehicle makers. People are buying cars according to their own price points, even over the internet, and repairs and services are linked to dealerships more than ever. Electric vehicles are also emerging fast.
“It is a good time to close,” he said.
Customers are sad seeing the Landsmans close shop.
“They’ve kept a lot of Volvos running and will be missed,” Doug Henderson said in an email.
Adrian Chamberlain, who has been taking his 1990 Volvo 240 wagon there for more than 20 years, called Landsman “the consummate Volvo mechanic,” often fixing things for no charge — “who does that nowadays?”
“His knowledge of these vehicles is astonishing,” said Chamberlain. “Beyond that, Peter is one of the nicest people I know. Always gracious, always friendly.
“And he’s a huge Rolling Stones fan.”
