Our History

The familiar red and white Art Deco building on Durant near Shattuck has been a fixture in the Berkeley downtown landscape. Originally built as a Lincoln-Mercury dealership in the 1940s, the building has gone through several transformations over the decades.

After the building became a towing and auto body repair facility in the 1960s, Hustead's operated smoothly under a different set of family owners over the decades.

In 1989 Hustead's was one of the only building in Berkeley to suffer major damage during the Loma Prieta Earthquake. In fact, the building burned to the ground and was completely rebuilt in the Art Deco style of the original building.