Bert Laakmann came to Canada from Germany, as a journeyman machinist in 1955 at the tender age of eighteen. It didn't take Bert long to get into the automotive business and on his 2l' birthday he had a Texaco service station at 41 and Camarvon in Vancouver. After two years, Texaco decided that they wanted their stations to focus on selling gasoline not doing heavy mechanical work. Bert felt otherwise and before long the first location of Bert's Automotive Transmissions Ltd. came into being not far from its current main location on Kingsway. The main service offered was service and repair of manual transmissions (standard, as they were called then, of course automatics are standard today), differentials were added, and now they do automatics as well. The original Kingsway location was expanded and expanded again. Other locations sprang up over the years. more... See more text