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 October 2005 Back to Table of Contents Back to Archives Main Page Section: Life & Leisure First Cars By Nanette Tramont
Mine was a 1963 Dodge Coronet 440. A “hand-me-down” from my grandfather, it was four years old when I got it in 1967 at age 16. It had a gray exterior with a white chrome-trimmed stripe down each side, red vinyl interior (my grandfather was the sporty-type) and a toothy chrome grill. No four-on-the-floor or three-on-the-tree, my Coronet sported a typewriter transmission — PRNDL on the dash. I loved that car, and still have fond memories of it. Forever Young thought it would be interesting to know if others feel the same way, so herewith, some well-known Western New Yorkers talk about their first cars. Tony Masiello was a basketball star at Canisius College when he got his first car — a 1960 powder blue Ford Falcon. A neighbor’s relative was driving the car back from California to sell it in 1966 when the future mayor bought it. “It was in mint condition, it only had one owner and had never seen a Buffalo winter. It was impeccably clean,” Masiello says. And although he lived on campus, “it was a dream come true for a young college student to own his own car,” he remembers. “I was a hotshot man-about-town.” The car didn’t last his college career though. “I smashed it up driving on the Scajaquada with my teammates to practice. There was an abandoned car in the passing lane — my car was demolished. It broke my heart.” Tommy Shannon, who recently retired from his afternoon drive-time shift at WHTT-FM Oldies 104 after 50 years in broadcasting, was also a college student when he got his first car in 1959 — a 1955 robin’s-egg blue Ford Fairlane convertible. “I wanted one very badly,” he says. “I was 19 or 20 and didn’t have a car when I was younger, so I lusted after one. I loved that car, even though it was nothing but trouble with the hoses. “But it was a dream car. The first day I drove it, it was a nice warm day and I was driving down Elmwood and I thought, ‘hey man, I’m really hot,’ and I turned to look at some pretty girl and rear-ended someone. “I was terrified to drive after that,” Shannon recalls. A car enthusiast, Shannon went on to own several more convertibles — a Buick Roadmaster (“with the holes on the side”) after that, a Jaguar XKE in 1967 and three Corvettes. WGRZ-TV chief weather anchor Kevin O’Connell was 18 in 1967 when he got his blue 1965 Ford Galaxy. “My father and I went to this little guy in the neighborhood who was selling three cars. I can’t even remember what we paid for it, but it was a lot at the time, especially since I didn’t have any money and my father was fronting me,” O’Connell says. “I remember three weeks after buying it we took it on a trip with the whole family, and on the way back there was a terrible rainstorm and the windshield wipers broke. My brother had to reach his hand out the passenger-side window to keep the things moving,” O’Connell recalls. “I bought a pig in a poke, and I got a pig! But it never leaked, the gas stayed in it and the heater worked. It was transportation to and from.” Another car enthusiast, O’Connell says his favorite car was an Indy pace car, a black Corvette stingray. “It was gorgeous!” he says. He would come to own three other ‘Vettes — white, beige and Lotus green. “That was in my radio days. I loved those cars!” Scott Bieler, president of West Herr Automotive Group, bought his first car when he was 15, so he would be “ready to go” when he got his license at age 16. The 1966 Chevy Impala convertible was four years old when he bought it in 1969 for $500. A car enthusiast even then, Bieler had a field car as a youth growing up in Orchard Park. (Field cars — unlicensed, usually pretty beat-up cars that kids would drive around fields — were a suburban phenomenon of the 60s and early 70s that went the way of most suburban fields: defunct. But his first real car was something else. “I wanted a convertible,” he says. “And my father wanted it to be a bigger car.” So the Impala fit the bill, and Bieler modified it with custom wheels. Six months after he got it, Bieler said, “I drove the car to school and came out in the afternoon, and it wasn’t there.” Stolen for its custom wheels, Bieler’s Impala was found later that day in Chestnut Ridge Park, undamaged, and jacked up in a ravine minus its tires and custom wheels. “The car was fine,” he said, “but I never drove it again. It just didn’t feel like my car.” Bieler went on to buy a 1968 Ford Torino, which he kept for about a year, and then a Dodge Super Bee. But his best car, the one that to this day he is most proud of, was a 1972 Corvette. “I was 19 and I found it in the paper. It was a one-year-old car and it was for sale by a private owner — a very nice man,” Bieler remembers. “I was $400 short of what he wanted for it, and I had brought every dollar I had (and some I didn’t have) when I went to see it. “He could tell how much I loved the car, and we just sat and talked for about two hours, and he agreed to sell it to me, and he said he’d give it to me for what I had. And while I was there, he got a call from someone who had looked at the car the day before and was willing to give him what he asked for it. But he said no, that he had just sold it. “And when we were taking the car to my house, he stopped and filled it up with gas.” Bieler says he never forgot that man and what he did for him, and it guides him today in his own business. “When you can do more than what is expected, it stays with you, and it had a major impact on me. He was a real class guy.” First cars are like first loves — some crash and burn, and some are stolen away. But like first loves, unless you still have them, first cars are probably better left in the past. back to top back to table of contents Current Issue | About Forever Young | Where to Find | Advertise | Our Advertisers | Community Calendar | Contest | Clubs | Contact Us | Archives | Home |
