Meet Middleburg Matt Fox: A One Man Show

Story and photo by Kerry Phelps Dale

How fortuitous to have the last name of Fox and own a business named Fox Automotive in horsey Middleburg. Matt Fox didn’t contrive any of that. He grew up a few miles from town in St. Louis, and after servicing the community’s vehicles since 1987 at Middleburg Exxon, he opened his own garage 1 ½ years ago.

Destined for a mechanical career, Matt remembers taking things apart and putting them back together as a youngster. His 14-year-old son, Christopher, seems to be following in his father’s footsteps.

“He’s excellent at taking things apart,” Matt says, “but he hasn’t figured out how to put them back together.”

Since Christopher has his sights on becoming an aerospace engineer, maybe household appliances simply don’t have the same intrigue they had for his father.

The automotive repair business has changed dramatically since Matt first started wrestling with radiators and tackling transmissions. Today much is accomplished through computers—diagnostics and repairs—on which Matt has stayed up to date through education, certifications and equipment. Still, though, Matt does enough engine tinkering to get oil smears on his T-shirt and grease under his fingernails.

That’s as far as the stereotype of an auto mechanic goes with Matt. He’s as honest and reliable as they come and doesn’t recall ever having an altercation with a customer. He doesn’t have a single bad review online, in fact nothing but five-star gushing reviews. And that’s as rare as needing a major repair and discovering that your car is still under warranty.

“I’ve heard that,” Matt says wryly of his profession’s reputation. “This industry is very competitive, and sometimes in the larger shops the mechanics are paid on commission, so they make unnecessary repairs.”

Matt is a one-man show with a two-bay garage. He says the only thing he really misses since starting Fox Automotive and being tucked away on Federal Street is the “constant coming and going of people at the pumps.” He may have been too occupied to talk, “but I was never too busy to wave,” he says of his tenure at Exxon.

When Matt started fixing automobiles he found his reward in accomplishment—diagnosing and repairing. Now he’s most fulfilled by helping people in need, like the person who has a flat tire at 5 p.m. or car trouble on the commute home.

Case in point. A woman walks in at 4:45 on a Thursday afternoon, tells Matt about a leak in her tire and asks if he can fix it on Saturday. Matt looks at his calendar, which is full, and says, “Can you bring it in at 7 a.m.?”

“We’ll both just have to get up earlier,” he says of the appointment he squeezed in.

Hung on the wall of his garage are two works of art, a charcoal and a painting, by and from patrons. Of foxes, of course. There is other fox paraphernalia lining the walls and the window sills, all gifts from his adoring customers.

“People give me fox things all of the time,” Matt says, innocent of the significance of a mechanic having a fan club.

There’s not much Matt can’t handle in car repair, but he finds the common rodent damage sometimes the hardest to diagnose. Critters are just part of the job in a country shop, and evidently, so is the occasional snake. Once when taking off a wheel he found a snake staring him in the face. It turned and slithered away back into the workings of the vehicle.

“I do not like snakes,” states Matt, who had to tell the owner about the hitchhiker.

Since opening Fox Automotive, Matt works Saturdays and finds himself with less free time on his hands. After commuting home to Catharpin to his wife Nicole and Christopher he likes to ride four-wheelers with his son and help him with his Boy Scouts projects. And given a day to do anything, he thinks (he always thinks before speaking) and says, “I enjoy fishing.”

It’s a 95-degree day in July, both garage doors are open, fans are blowing, the sun is glaring through the big plate-glass windows as Matt sits at his desk at the end of the day trying to repair his desktop computer. To no avail. Drive nearly any vehicle into his garage, however, and he’ll fix it, and possibly return it to you sans rodent. But don’t expect him to remove the snake.

And don’t forget to drive by 13 East Federal Street and wave. He misses that. ML