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Cruising into Summer

For a select few, summer means it's time to polish your classic car until it shines and show it off to beachgoers and fellow car enthusiasts alike. Here are three local car buffs with stories to share.

A Boy and His Morris

At age 13, David Cardone bought a Morris Minor 1000, a tiny British convertible that his friend's older brothers had raced on a dirt path in their Long Island hometown.

"My favorite matchbox car was a Morris Minor—the same color—I was in heaven," he says.

Cardone bought the car for $27.50. "The fact that I didn't tell my parents that I bought a car, or that I was 13 and too young to get a driver's license, or didn't know how to get it home, never entered my mind," he says.

Cardone bought three other Morris cars before he was 16. Afterwards, "Not another Morris crossed my path," he says. "Then in 1979 a fellow stopped into my little repair garage. He had in tow a non-running 1960 Morris Minor convertible—that same color."

Cardone bought the car for $50; he retrieved it from storage last year. Today, it's a side project at Cardone & Daughter Automotive in Old Saybrook. "We keep moving along on it little by little," he says.

Who Saved the Electric Car?

Bill Lillie, that's who. His Detroit Electric is from 1931. Believe it or not, electric cars were common in the early 1900s.

"They appealed to women in the cities," says Lillie, a resident of Gales Ferry. "You don't have to do any 'manly' things like crank them or put gas or oil in them."

So why wasn't the electric car more successful?

"It was primarily range," says Lillie; his car gets about 100 miles on the flat. The car also cost more: $3,000, versus $400 for a Ford Model A.

As of this writing, the car's body is bare metal, but it's "in good shape." Lillie has secured vintage material for the upholstery, and he got the car running. Lillie plans to have the car ready for the 23rd annual Greenwich Concours d'Elegance in June. It's a dream he's already accomplished once—Lillie showed his 1922 Detroit Electric at last year's Concours.

It Runs in the Family

"My dad [Sam] was an auto mechanic teacher at Bristol High School for 40 years," says Rich Willard of Vintage Motorcars in Westbrook. "I kind of caught the old car bug from him."

About 15 years ago, Willard bought his 1948 Packard—a classic American luxury car. After fixing it up, he started taking it to the car shows at Mohegan Sun with his kids, Andrew and Beth.

"When you're at the car show no one knows what it is," he says of the Packard. "They didn't have that body style for very long. It looks like an upside-down bathtub."

Eventually, Willard's kids tired of the car shows. However, it's still a family thing. Today, Sam has retired—from teaching, not from cars. "Now he helps me with the business," says Willard. "He's 86, comes into work every day."