Gunnard Carl Rubini immigrated from Sweden to the United States in 1911 and settled in the Chicago area. Speaking no English his first employment was as a mechanic in a taxi fleet service garage.
Gunnard served in the US Army in WW1 and in 1918 opened his first service garage in Chicago.
The onset of the Great Depression found Gunnard's main part supplier in major financial difficultly. After suppling finical aid he soon became a partner in the company.
Late in 1931 the company was asked to start a United Delco outlet in Toledo Ohio. Gunnard's partner in the automotive parts supply house had all his family in the Chicago area so Gunnard agreed to move his family to Toledo and start the new business. The First Sales Invoice for Toledo Auto Electric is dated February 2, 1932.

In 1936 grandfather started bring home old carburetors, fuel pumps, starters and generators so his son, Gunnard Armond Rubini could start to learn the trade. Gunnard A started driving the company delivery truck, a 39 Dodge Sedan Delivery and helped with the every day tasks of the repair and service business the summer after turning 14.
After finishing undergraduate school in 1952 Gunnard A worked at Toledo Auto Electric full time, and went to graduate school at Toledo University part time. In 1954 Armond wanted to go into the foreign car business, and took on Jaguar, MG and VW. He had already imported the first Lotus into the US in 1953, and raced it in '54, a Mk VI, serial #26.

The first car Gunnard A retailed was a '54 VW, from the back shop of TAE. In June of '54 an inspector from the Ohio Dealer's and Salesmen Licensing Division informed Armond that he would need to have a dealers license and showroom plus a service department to qualify for the needed license. That was when he bought the front building on Dorr St.
The year 1957 found the VW and sports cars business going pretty well. Armond leased the Mobil Station at 18th and Monroe, to have downtown Toledo service for VW. In 1959 he subleased the old Lincoln/Mercury dealership at Madison and 21st, and moved the VW dealership there.
About that time Armond bought the gas station from Mobil Oil Company, added the back building and moved the service department of Toledo Auto Electric there, and set up another corporation, TAE Service Inc. This was done so the service business would qualify as a separate customer and the warehouse could earn the redistribution discounts for selling the service operation parts. AC-Delco required this, although the other mfrs didn't much care.
About that time they started to add other new product lines at Toledo Auto Electric.

After selling the foreign car dealership in 1985 Gunnard Armond retired and his son's Brad and Mark went into the full line parts supply operation with the addition of Arvin exhaust, TRW, Champion, Monroe, and many other product lines. The part's supply business was very good for many years and was recently sold to CarQuest in 1998, this left the repair service businesses of Toledo Spring and TAE Service.

The growth has been fun and changes very challenging and that's what brings us to Internet sales. We see this very mature business as one shrinking in ways or means to get old electrical or fuel system parts repaired or serviced. The young people want to work with computers and the glamor is not in this industry for them.
Our manager Dan is one of the best in Toledo, he has been repairing and servicing electrical systems for 34 years, 31 of them with TAE. Tom F has been doing repair and service work for us 28 years. John has been with the company for 25 years. George our fuel system specialist has been doing this type repairs since high school, 16 years. Tom M our newest employe has just finished his apprentice program and is doing an incredible job.

Combining over 104 years of repair expertise Toledo Auto Electric Service has the personnel, parts and test equipment to repair electrical and fuel systems from restoration of a John Deer B series tractor up to the complicated computer controlled fuel and electrical systems on our modern day cars and trucks.

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