01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, April 19, 2006

BARRINGTON -- Bay Spring is cleanest service station in town

This would be your father's garage -- or maybe your grandfather's -- if it wasn't so clean and the tools so modern. The Bay Spring service station is a paean to the past, filled with auto memorabilia and a couple of old cars.

Across from a cemetery on a mostly residential street in this bucolic town you can have your car serviced by Mike Wroblinski, a mechanic with nearly 30 years of experience. But Wroblinksi's passion is antiques, and he has filled the garage with old signs, license plates, toys, clocks and other objects, some of which are only remotely connected to cars.

There are also Tonka toys, pedal cars, scale models and even a 1950s Seeberg jukebox teardrop wall speaker through which country music is pumped from a modern stereo.

"People say it's the neatest garage they've ever seen," says Susan Wroblinski, Mike's wife and the bookkeeper in this mom-and-pop business. And it is, in more ways than one.

The white stucco building looks modest from the outside, but when you walk through the door you don't know where to look first. All the signs and show items tend to hide the fact that there are lifts, air hoses and a tire changer -- all the usual garage equipment. But there are no oily rags in sight, and the floor is so clean that, as the saying goes, you could probably eat off it.

On the walls are about 200 license plates from just about every state, some 20 clocks -- some in neon -- and about 20 thermometers with advertising embossing. And there are countless metal automotive advertising signs. "I like advertising," Wroblinski says. He also likes Coca-Cola memorabilia, and there are numerous antique coolers, dispensing machines and anything else Wroblinski can find with the Coca-Cola logo on it. But for all that, you can't buy a Coke from any of the machines.

In fact, you can't buy anything in the garage. It's all for show, stuff that makes the Bay Spring garage a fun place to be when you are having repairs done.

A 1962 Jeep pickup truck, from the era of flathead engines and the Willys nameplate, is in the back bay, restored and painted a bright red. It's one of Wroblinski's toys, along with his 2005 Triumph Bonneville T100 motorcycle, made to look like a classic bike. Nathan, one of his twin sons, is restoring the 1970 Chevrolet Nova, painted an even brighter shade of red, parked against the wall. It now has a 350-cubic-inch V8 pulled from a Corvette.

Also in the garage on this day is a black 1950 Chevrolet Deluxe sedan owned by Herb Perry of Berkley, Mass. "It has only 28,000 miles," says Perry, a collector who visits almost every day to keep his cars in running condition.

Wroblinski frequently works on old cars but doesn't specialize in them. "I do general repairs, nothing major," he said.

He's been here for seven years after spending 17 years at United Automobile of East Providence. The building dates to the 1920s, when it was known as O'Neil's Garage. It was a total disaster, and Wroblinski, a contractor and others spent six months putting it back into shape. They replaced the roof and an entire wall, gutting it and starting all over. "It was being used as a car wash when I bought it in 1999," he says.

Wroblinski, 56, and Susan live in Riverside with their four children, Nathan and Michael, 20, Emma, 18, and Hannah, 11. He admits that his rec room at home looks much like the garage. In fact, the entire house is furnished in antiques. He goes antiquing on the weekends, pulling a trailer of stuff to various flea markets, where he buys and sells -- not strictly automotive related items. He keeps the two businesses separate.

Since he works by himself, Wroblinski can keep a more relaxed pace. Because of his location, the town mandates that he must close shop by 5 p.m., which is fine by him. He says his customers come from near and far, looking for an independent shop where they can have first-hand relationship with the mechanic.

And lots of good stuff to look at while they wait.

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Slide show:

See more images from the Bay Spring Garage:

http://www.projo.com/projocars/slideshows/2006/bayspringgarage/