Our Name

The “Livery Stable Automotive” name ???

People ask us all the time where I (Bruce Gunter) came up with the name “The Livery Stable Automotive” for our shop.

Here’s the story:

In 1986 my family started a limousine company to take people to the airport and back. Soon thereafter, they discovered how hard it was to find a reliable, honest, repair shop, to service and repair their cars.

So with help from my parents, in January of 1987, I opened a very small shop in my garage in Stilwell Kansas. At that time, the limousines were the only vehicles I worked on. Although I only worked on our vehicles, I needed a name for tax and other legal purposes.

In the old days every town had a “livery stable”. It often served as the transportation hub for the town where you could rent or board a horse or have your buggy repaired. Since I was working on limousines which are tagged as “livery vehicles” I thought it would be clever to name our shop The Livery Stable Automotive.

Since then many things have changed and many times I have regretted our shop name, (I can’t tell you how many calls I’ve had over the years from people wanting to board or stable a horse) but our customers seem to like the name and we’ve grown quite fond of it as well.

The limousine business is gone now and we no longer work on limousines but our business has expanded and grown over the years allowing us the ability to work on a far greater range of vehicles.

I hope when people think of The Livery Stable now, they think of a quality, honest, automotive repair shop and not a horse and buggy stable!

Definition: livery stable -noun- a stable where horses and vehicles are cared for or rented out for pay.

Origin: 1695-1705

A livery stable has come to mean a place where horse owners keep their horses in return for a fee. Levels of provision and service at a livery stable or livery yard vary greatly, as do the fees.