John Busch III of Busch Auto Service Center with the holiday train display at his store, which will be closing permanently at the end of the year. Brian Hill/[email protected], 2019

The vintage brick building conjures memories of classic roadside auto repair shops.

The Goodyear logo on the facade also touches a nostalgic chord.

Busch Auto Service Center, 137 S. Northwest Highway in Palatine, has been in business since 1946. But the business will conclude its final chapter next week.

"We are the oldest business in Palatine," said John Busch III, whose grandfather, John Busch Sr., started the firm. The firm subsequently was owned by John Busch Jr. and later his wife, Nancy, and John Busch III.

John Busch III now owns the business with his wife, Cynthia, who met John when she came to the store to get an oil change in 1999.

Busch said he aims to move to South Carolina and run an alpaca farm -- he volunteers every week at a Barrington farm.

The store isn't only memorable for its vintage exterior. Customers entering the business are struck by the collection of model trains, train tracks and scenery on display during the holiday season.

Busch said his interest in trains was passed on to him by his father, John Busch Jr.

"My dad and I would run trains all over the house," he said.

Busch's grandfather, John, bought the land in 1944 and opened two years later. In the late '40s, John Busch Sr. built a house next door where the family lived.

In the 1940s and '50s, Busch said, the building would be the first one people would see coming into Palatine.

Over the years, the store has evolved, as it lived up to its motto, "Good Tires. Good Service. Good People."

It became a Goodyear dealer in 1958 and was incorporated as Busch Auto Service Center Inc. in 1964.

John Busch III began working in the business when he was about 11 years old in the early 1980s. At that time, the center also was a full-service gas station, and young John was pumping gas -- gas was less than $1 a gallon then.

Busch received training to become the store's manager from Goodyear in Akron, Ohio in 1991.

The family business includes Busch's sister, Monica Busch Fruhauf, who is the office manager and has worked there for 33 years.

"It's going to be hard to say goodbye to customers," she said. "It wasn't just an auto shop. It was family."

In its final years, the business has been a full-service automotive shop, specializing in oil changes, diagnostics and, of course, tires.

Closing a business that has been in his family for generations is bittersweet, Busch said