Top Gear Automotive in Minneapolis

Maybe avoid...

http://www.startribune.com/local/minneapolis/188440371.html

 

Wow sounds like a stand up guy!!

Just stick with Tim and you will be much happier, nice guy and well respected.

 

Yup, that's the plan. I was in a local Porsche shop with a friend recently and asked who they would recommend to work on Ferraris (which they won't touch). The owner said he wasn't sure who was good, but that he thought Top Gear was bad.

A shame they stole the name of my favorite show. I've always wondered how long until a trademark suit was filed...

 

With any luck the clown will stay down

 

kind of off topic, but my wife and I will probably be moving there in the next 6-7 months. Who would you guys suggest to work on a F355? I appreciate your help guys.

Kyle

 

Moving here on purpose???

In the Metro I recomend Tim (2NA)
I do my own work but I have been around Tim enough to know he does solid honest work and truly cares for his customers and their cars.

 

HAHA, well... On purpose is maybe not the choice of words I would use. It would be for a work.

 

I would also recommend Tim.

 

Thanks guys for the votes of confidence!

The St Paul paper has a few more details.

Smashed Lamborghini, insurance fraud charge the latest legal trouble for David 'Superdave' Juntunen - TwinCities.com

 

Another vote for Tim. I had a 430 in at Top Gear a couple years ago to look for a problem I suspected the car had but needed to be sure before shipping to Ferrari in Chicago for warranty work. They missed it. I met Tim shortly after- he did an inspection and found it in time for me to get it covered under emission warranty.

In addition to being a great mechanic, he's just a fun guy to talk to.

 

I remember that car. The exhaust diverter venturis were disconnected by the previous owner on top of the exhaust issue. Tim ended up buying a smoke machine after borrowing mine for that job.

 

Even though many of you have chimed in, I'll give a (belated) endorsement of Tim. He is great!

As for moving here, well, I lived in AZ for about 8.5 years and here for about 9. I GREATLY prefer MN over AZ. The summers just got to be too much to endure. Winters here can actually be a lot of fun depending on your mindset. Also, there is a lot more to MN than the weather...

Of course, it is very much a personal preference thing...

 

Thanks for everyones responses. Yeah my wife and I have lived in Tucson our whole lives. This will be our first moving adventure (out of state, not just buying homes in Tucson). So we are excited, yes we know it is going to be cold.

 

Wear a jacket and you'll be fine here. This is a good place to live.

Have you got a house or a part of town picked out yet?

 

Thats what we have heard. Also no we have not picked anything yet. We are still prob 4-6 months out from moving. But we have driven around with people that live there. Just not sure if we want to live in the city for the 1st year (everyones suggestion). So we shall see.

 

And snow shoes........and a blower......and take your car to Tim!

 

Thanks Brian!

Brian owns and operates a repair business for exotic cars in Indianapolis. You can find him at Autocar Sports Ferrari Porsche Service Indianapolis.

 

I'd never heard of this guy, but this is hilarious:

"Juntunen's criminal history includes convictions for third-degree criminal sexual conduct, third-degree burglary, motor vehicle theft and drunken driving. Charges say any vehicle he operates is required to be equipped with ignition interlock.

And that's not all. On New Year's Eve 2008, he was arrested after he parachuted from the top of the Foshay Tower in Minneapolis. A video of his jump is still accessible online under the name of his business.

"What makes us different?" the Top Gear website reads. "In a word ... ethics.""


I can highly recommend Kevin Tan and the Imola Motorsports crew in the twin cities. They've always been a very stand-up, forthright crew.

 

Please call Kevin at Imola Motor Sports in St. Louis Park, MN. Awesome guy and great facilities. He will be servicing my F430.

 

I personally ship my car to Chicago. I haven't tried Tim but from what I can gather Donnybrooke went out of business and through the grapevine I have heard that they're only working on the owner's vehicles. Rumor is that the guy that fixes exotics at Imola isn't very well trained and actually put a clutch in a F430 backwards and the customer had to buy the scan tool to fix the car! Obviously Top Gear doesn't sound like that will be an option if the newspapers are not just gossip rags. I do know that Morries does a lot of exotic work but does anyone know if they're very good?

For now it's worth the drive to Chicago for me.

 

It was interesting to read some of these comments as we have not been on here in some time. That being said I think that for what it's worth people should know that Top Gear is alive and well and continues to service exotics and expand regardless of the mishap from two years ago.

As for what people are saying about various shops in the area we will say that there are a number of options to chose from and we believe that all of them have good and bad points. We encourage people to shop around, find the fit that's right for you. Some shops will have vastly more experience than others and it's been our experience that just about any shop can service a newer Ferrari, Lamborghini or Maserati as they're not too difficult but when you get into electrical, driveability, F1 transmissions, vintage, and more of the specialty things you may need to look around as finding knowledgeable, experienced techs is becoming difficult.

Some local shops known for repairing Ferrari, etc. are:

- Donnybrooke (A.K.A. World Ferrari A.K.A. GT Cars)
- Morries Maserati (previously mentioned)
- Tim Keseluk (previously mentioned)
- Imola Motorsports (previously mentioned)
- Special Interest Auto
- Natole's Autoworks (John Natole's back at it in Maple Plain)
- Top Gear (us)

...and there's plenty of resources such as WHEELS OF ITALY : The Official Site that are localized to help you find the experience level you are looking for.


As for the commentary on my personal life of over 25 years ago (or the car incident of 2 years ago) I will not justify ridicule with response. I think it's Jonathan Swift who once said, "A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday."

Dave J.
Owner
Top Gear

 

Another vote for Tim, very professional, knowledgeable and actually gets it right, doesn't just guess and go...Save the miles, Chicago is a long way for shipping a car to get fixed

 

Looks like he plead guilty- was on the news today. It sounds like he will be sentenced in Dec- if I heard the news right. Most likely 3 years probation I believe is what I heard.

 

That settles the criminal case but there's still the matter of the $82K uninsured damage to the client's (a lawyer) car.

Jury trial next year, stand by.

 

Since there appears to be an interest in this again and since I have pled to the matter I am now able to speak freely about it and will lay out the facts.


I think to adequately get a picture of what led up to the incident it's important to lay some things out on the table that may not be known. I started Top Gear after working for many different companies including Lotus, Audi, Porsche, BMW, Jaguar, Donnybrooke, Quality Coaches, First Class Imports in Boulder, CO and was scouted by a number of Ferrari, Lotus and other high end dealers. What continued to drive me to be the best in my field was recognition and I attained that. As I became one of the more sought out techs in the industry my ego swelled and I really believe that this is where my downfall began. Hindsight is 20/20 they say and my experience is exactly that. I was let go, passed over for or left many lucrative and promising positions (Field Service Engineer for Lotus Cars is one) because of my behavior, attitude and partying.

Without getting into too much detail I will say that I was a trouble maker all through elementary and through my high school years. After graduation I was running around with the wrong people and ended up getting into enough trouble to land me in prison at 19. During my short stay in the penal system I swore to never end up there again and set out to do just that. I got a job, went to college for a degree in Automotive Technology and set out to make my mark on the world legitimately. Alcohol and drugs had been an issue in my life for quite a while and as I became more and more successful I began to use more. There were brief stints where I was able to stop or moderate based on consequences or goals but they were never lasting. I did however succeed in landing really good jobs and kept out of any real trouble except for my inability to control my chemical use which led to DWI’s and other driving related charges.

Shortly after opening Top Gear I gained my 3rd (and last) DWI but I still didn't see this as a problem, I identified it as a consequence of circumstance (I made a left hand turn on a yellow) because I couldn’t see reality (I drank too much which resulted in my BAC). I think a lot of people inaccurately refer to this as denial but my experience is that I was delusional (Delusion: a belief held with strong conviction despite superior evidence to the contrary). I firmly believed that I could manage everything successfully if I only....(fill in the blank).

I started Top Gear with no money, no backing and grew it into one of the most successful shops in Minneapolis and within a year and a half we were doing more business than my previous employer. I started to gain a large exotic and specialty crowd and this only served to further boost my ego because after all, hadn’t I accomplished the impossible? Top Gear became my identity as a person. As my ego continued to grow, so did my partying. I was using more, showing up less and the company I was so proud of began to stumble. As I started to care less for the thoughts and feelings of those around me, boundaries that I had never before crossed began to take a back seat. I had never before taken a client’s car without permission, never charged for anything that wasn’t legitimate and always had tried to be ethical.

After the Lamborghini was damaged I was devastated (I literally was sick and couldn’t get out of bed for almost a week). Fear gripped me as I had never experienced in my life. I was afraid of the legal implications, the costs I knew were coming but more than that what this said about who I was. Up until this point I had prided myself on being in control and overcoming all my obstacles but at this moment a stark reality gripped me…I am out of control and all that I had accomplished was a façade. I was a fake. I say I care but I don’t. I say I’m ethical but I’m not. I will step on anyone around me to get my way regardless of the cost. I am not really a part of society but an individual pretending. I don’t have friends, I hold hostages. I am alone. I had no effective way to process these realizations.

This mindset propelled me into the darkest place of my life. Over the next few months I tried desperately to control the situation while making it worse. Due to my lifestyle I didn’t have the money to just pay the car or to make everything all go away. In my delusion I couldn’t see that just ‘doing the right thing’ and acting in honesty would be the most effective way to resolve this but instead I figured I could out think it. As I was backed into a corner that I couldn’t bail out of my only solution was to continue to blot out my misery with alcohol and drugs. Toward the end of that September I had overdosed, financially depleted Top Gear and was (for lack of a better word) suicidal. Looking back I thought that making a million dollars, being successful, living life on my own terms were all I would need to be happy. But in the end I found myself restless, irritable and discontent. Never happy with where I was but always seeking the next best thing.

The turning point was the beginning of September when a client walked in. He was in the shop for about 20 minutes and observed my behavior and said, “I want to talk to you about the company.” Now I had been hinting around that I wanted to sell Top Gear and do something different so I thought that he meant to make an offer on the company so I gladly accepted. We sat down to have lunch and the first words out of his mouth were, “You’re a mess. You need help.” I had known that I needed help for quite a long time but I didn’t know where to start or what to do or quite frankly even realized that anyone else could see the mess my life had become. I agreed and that began the process of my recovery which resulted in a treatment program and continues to this day with other related activities.

Now the details of the Lamborghini incident are somewhat irrelevant in light of what I have just laid out but let me clarify some things. The media likes to make it sound as though this was a death-defying stunt but in reality it’s a bit more tame than that. The real damage occurred when at about 45 mph the 2” front bumper of the car made contact with the 6” curb. This led to the front bumper of the car being torn off which also damaged the front fenders and headlights. The right front wheel hit and, as Lamborghini’s are designed to do, popped the upper and lower ball joints off separating the wheel from the car (this is designed to avoid damaging the structure of the car). The estimate to repair the car is $80K which seems high but in light of $6,000 fenders, $2,000 wheels and $4,000 headlights it’s fathomable that such a small amount of damage could cost so much to repair. I think we hear this figure and we immediately assume the car was totaled when in fact it really needs a few parts and some paint.

I’m not proud of my mistakes or in any way want to diminish the seriousness of my actions. I am working very hard to set these mistakes right in whatever way possible. The pain of loss and betrayal that the client must feel would be difficult for anyone to have to absorb. As for how that will work out will be determined in the future, but my and Top Gear’s only desire is for the client to be taken care of in whatever way possible. I realize that there are many emotional and mental scars that a victim takes away from an incident that will never be undone but I believe all that I can do from this point forward is to make sure that I never cause those same scars again.

Today I am very active in an organization and work intensively with treatment centers to help others by sharing my experience and making sure that resources are available to those who may not feel they have a way out. All in all things could have been better and they could have been much worse. I am very fortunate because this has been a life changing event that daily gives me an opportunity to work with others struggling with addiction and unmanageability in their own lives.

Despite my best efforts at destroying it, Top Gear continues to thrive and grow as many of our 3,000 clients have rallied behind us. After a couple of financial setbacks and a re-tuning of our business model we are busier than ever with a staff that is willing to do whatever it takes for the success of the company and the satisfaction of the client. I want to personally thank all of you who continue to do business with us. Moving forward we will continue to grow and improve together.