The photos and documents hanging on the walls of the lobby at Hollingsworth Auto Service — a 108-year-old shop in the heart of Savannah, Georgia — paint vivid pictures of a bygone era.
Looking at the workers posed next to a vintage 1930s automobile outside the original shop, or an estimate written during the Great Depression for a mere fraction of the average $4,500 RO these days, it’s easy to imagine where it all began.
But despite how much cars have changed in over a century of business, one thing has always stayed the same: Hollingsworth’s steadfast commitment to the people driving them.
“We are an old business in a very old city, and our legacy is something we take very seriously,” says fourth-generation owner James Ivanowski, the great grandson of founder E.E. Hollingsworth. He now co-owns the shop with his mother, Linda Ivanowski. “My mom keeps our legacy alive; she keeps everyone reminded of our history that few others remember,” he adds, saying her relationships within the community and familiarity with the customers is a huge boon to the business.
“Our brochure says it all: ‘The customer always has and always will come first. We stand behind all our work. We are not happy until you are happy. That’s why we guarantee all repairs.’”
It’s undoubtedly why the shop still works on the cars of their original customers’ families, all these years later…and why they’re sure to still be working on the next generation’s for years to come.
Thriving for Another Century
People often ask Ivanowski how the family has managed to keep the business going for so long, and his answer is always the same: determination and grit, which he says have “always been a part of the shop’s culture” no matter who was running it. That, and “the way we treat our customers, the way we treat our employees, and our dedication to quality repairs.”
Every owner has fully realized that “the shop is bigger than any one person” — that’s been a constant for over a century. A lot of people — around 40, to be exact — depend on the shop to support their families…and that’s not something Ivanowski, nor his predecessors, take lightly. Creating a stable, supportive work environment with opportunities for growth is imperative, and something every generation has worked tirelessly to maintain.
“E.E. walked the streets writing estimates. Howard Sr. would work seven days a week, 14-hour days to repair fleet vehicles for the city government after normal working hours. Tough times sometimes require tough measures. The shop has survived through the Great Depression, floods, market downturns, and countless other challenges,” James says, “but we’ve always come out the other side…we’ve always found a way.”
Essential to finding that way, he says, is remaining flexible and keeping the ability to scale the business up and down without ruining it…which is a big reason they took the opportunity to partner with Certified Collision Group (CCG).
“We saw it as a great opportunity to increase our footprint in the OEM certification area. We really believe that the future of referrals will shift toward OEMs pushing work to qualified and certified shops. There are so many factors involved in returning a modern vehicle to pre-accident condition, and there are so many variations between OEMs as to how to achieve this end goal. OEM certifications provide a streamlined process to obtain the proper training, tooling, and repair procedures to fix modern vehicles.”
Joining CCG, he says, positions the business to add additional OEM certifications to their existing five at their own pace.
Hollingsworth also has about 10 carefully curated DRP partnerships with companies who align with their standards, allowing for a streamlined repair process and maximized efficiency — although neither shop relies on DRPs for referrals, given their strong community ties. That may change in the future as they move into locations unfamiliar with the shop’s history. But for now, they’re focusing on certifications and capturing direct referrals from manufacturers.
“With some OEMs reporting accidents at the time of loss to their certified repair network, there’s an opportunity to become the first point of contact for a potential customer after a wreck,” he says. “This adds more value to an OEM certification as a referral source in a time when insurance companies are more and more uninformed on what it takes to properly repair a vehicle. I can see the value of the OEM certification increasing while the value of the DRP agreement as we know it decreases.”
The Next Generation
A career in the family business wasn’t part of Ivanowski’s original plan.
“I worked in the shop throughout high school and then went to college in Atlanta,” he recalled. “In 2003, I graduated from Georgia State University with a degree in finance and was hired as a corporate financial analyst for a very large P&C insurance carrier in Dallas, Texas.”
He didn’t know it yet, but that experience would be invaluable for the family business.
“When I was visiting home in 2006, my grandfather, who was long retired, asked point blank if I was, ‘gonna come home and run the family business, or what?’ I said, ‘of course,’ almost out of surprise. My only stipulation for accepting was that I needed to add value to the company — so I flew back to Texas with an arm full of Hollingsworth financial statements and got to analyzing.”
Through benchmarking KPIs he located online, Ivanowski found that there was “plenty of room for improvement in process and profitability” at the shop, so he accepted his grandfather’s proposal and joined the business in 2006. His tenure — much like his uncle before him — has been focused on modernization, process improvement, budgeting, forecasting, profitability, shop culture, and sales growth, he says. And he’s certainly had the success to prove his methods — in the year before James took over, revenue was around $1 million; it’s since grown to $10 million+ a year.
Now, almost 20 years later, Ivanowski’s oldest son, Jonah, is also a part Hollingsworth, having recently graduated from Furman University with a degree in communications. While it’s yet to be seen if Jonah will make his career in the family business, James is hopeful, saying he sees a lot of leadership potential in his son.
“I see so much of me in him when I first came back in 2006, a couple years out of college and wanting to make a difference and keep the legacy going,” Ivanowski says.
Currently working as an estimator, Jonah’s turning in “impressive” sales numbers each month, and is involved in most high-level decisions for the business.
“He’s already made a big difference around here and brings a younger perspective that is attracting younger talent to our team…and he’s networking with industry leaders and local families we have done business with for generations.”
The father and son are also part of AkzoNobel’s Acoat Selected North American Performance 20 Group, which James says has been “immensely valuable.”
“We trade ideas on how to better our business by improving processes, staying up to date on industry trends, improving customer experience, marketing to new and existing customers, finding and training new talent, and a host of other topics. I think 20 groups are important opportunities to step out of the day-to-day hustle and bustle of your business and into more of a business analyst role, to evaluate how our shop stacks up against everyone else. We feel like if we are not getting better, we are falling behind.”
Growing for the Employees
Jonah’s interest in the business has reignited his own passion for it, too, says Ivanowski, who’s now more interested than ever in expanding the shop to more locations — not just for Jonah, but for their other loyal employees, too, many of whom have been with the shop for decades. “Our employees are truly like family to us,” Ivanowski says.
“I think of growth a little differently than some; to me, growth is a means to reward your employees, to provide them with opportunities for leadership positions and upward mobility. The only way to create those positions is to expand.”
As part of this growth strategy, James and Linda opened a second location in West Savannah in August 2024 — a brownfield they converted from an old warehouse that’s about half the size of their downtown location. The idea, Ivanowski says, is to figure out how to make the business scalable for multiple locations — a model for future expansion. The team also uses the shop to trial process improvements that enhance efficiency and output, so far with great success…the new shop is already operating on a backlog.
But no matter how many shops the family opens in the future, one thing is certain — they will remain independent.
“We have always been — and will always be — fiercely independent,” Ivanowski says. “We started as a family business and that’s what we’ll always be.”
To keep a shop thriving and moving forward, something that’s often seldom talked about, Ivanowski says, is strong mental health.
“In an industry that’s constantly changing and highly stressful, you must take care of your mental health,” he implores, saying he’s seen too many people lose their physical health because of industry stressors. Keep your focus on the here and now, he advises, and don’t worry about the future.
“While it’s certainly important to be future-minded — planning in reverse for the goals you want to achieve and staying up to date with new tech and where the industry is headed — there’s no use in stressing over it,” he says. “That will eat you alive. You have to live life on life’s terms.”
A Walk Down Memory Lane
“When E.E. Hollingsworth first opened the shop in 1917, he’d just moved to Savannah from Rex, Georgia,” James Ivanowksi reminisces.
Immediately noticing there was a need for an automobile repair shop in town, he opened Hollingsworth Auto Service downtown, directly off the “Dixie Highway” — a route well-traveled by many southerners at the beginning of the automobile age, thanks to its abundance of service centers, dealerships, and “motor lodges.” (The current downtown shop is just two blocks from the original).
Ivanowski beams with pride as he recalls how his great-grandfather worked tirelessly to grow the business, even walking up and down the street during the Great Depression writing estimates on his neighbors’ cars to drum up work.
The shop’s next owner, Howard Viar Sr., arrived in Savannah in the 1940s, continues Ivanowski, fresh off a Liberty ship following World War II. After marrying E.E.’s daughter, Sybil, he came to work in the family business and took ownership in the early 1960s upon E.E.’s passing.
Viar Sr. became heavily involved in early automotive repair associations and was the first president of the Independent Garage Owners Organization, Ivanowski says, pushing for apprenticeship programs and licensing requirements in the industry.
“Just like today, the collision repair industry in the 1950s and ‘60s suffered from a shortage of qualified technicians. He really tried to think outside the box to find talent, even hiring Chinese technicians from a work abroad program.”
When the shop’s third and fourth owners — James’ uncle, Howard Viar Jr., and Howard’s younger sister, Linda Ivanowski (James’ mother) — joined the company in the 1970s, the focus of the shop changed.
“My uncle’s era as owner is really marked by a drastic shift to financial and process modernization within the business. He ran the shop by the numbers and began focusing on profitability. He’d always say, ‘Run the shop, don’t let the shop run you.’ He understood the importance of working ‘on’ the business, not just ‘in’ it. He also wanted the family to have a life outside of the shop; work-life balance is still a very important part of our culture.”
Sadly, Howard Jr. died unexpectedly of cancer in 2001, leaving Linda with “big shoes to fill.”
“After working her entire adult life at the shop, she had done just about everything and was prepared to do whatever it took to keep the family business going,” James says. And keep it going she certainly did.
A “trailblazer” and staunch advocate for women in the industry, Linda never shied away from tackling any job in the shop — even the ones traditionally done by men — and she’s still the backbone of the shop to this day, according to Ivanowski.
“People come in the shop all the time just to visit her,” he says, and she’s the glue that holds the family together. “She always puts family first and makes sure the rest of us do the same.”
The privilege of working side-by-side with his mom every day isn’t lost on James, who says he doesn’t take their partnership for granted.
Echoes from Generations Past
If the past generations could see the shop today, Ivanowski thinks they’d be “amazed,” not only by the growth of the shop and the complexity of the vehicles and tooling used to repair them, but also the business savvy it takes to be successful in the industry.
“Perhaps they’d be amazed that the shop is still open, too,” mused Ivanowski, “but I’d like to think not. I’d like to think they would just be proud that the legacy continues on.”
