The very last Mercury-only automobile dealership in the world, Community Motors, has severed its exclusive ties with Ford Motor Co. after nearly 60 years. The end comes today.
"That doesn't mean we're going out of business, because we're not," said Joe Mastrangioli, who is widely known in the car business as "Mercury Joe."
"We're just not going to be selling new Mercurys, that's all," he said Wednesday.
"We're going to expand the late-model used car business and open up and expand our repair business," he added.
Mastrangioli took over the small Mercury dealership in Canonsburg following the unexpected death of his father, Joe Sr., in January 1958, and over the years has sold perhaps as many as 25,000 new and used cars.
The end of the relationship with the Mercury line and with parent Ford Motor Co. was entirely voluntary on his part and expected on the part of Ford. Like other American automakers, Ford is engaged in a program of consolidating the number of dealerships, keeping only the megastores.
Ford has agreed to buy all the Mercury parts, which should be completed within two weeks or so. Just two weeks ago, Community Motors' stock of 35 new, 2008 model-year Mercurys left the lot at 574 W. Pike St., to be disbursed among Lincoln-Mercury dealers throughout the Tri-State region.
"It was hard to see those cars go," Mercury Joe said yesterday. "There were so many good memories associated with Mercury and Ford.
"When I graduated from Grove City College in 1957 and joined my dad in the business, I had big ideas as to how to market the cars and expand the business," he said while looking out the window at a severely downsized inventory of 35 used cars, including three new-looking Mountaineer four-wheel-drive SUVs.
"When Dad died, everything changed. Even though I came here when my dad got the Mercury franchise in 1950, we were in the business together only five months before he died. I had a lot to learn."
Joe and his mother, Mary R. Mastrangioli, 92, who worked alongside her son daily until two weeks ago, when she fell at home and had to be hospitalized, built the business until the flood of Japanese cars overtook the Big Three.
"When we started selling cars, there was Ford, General Motors and Chrysler, and that was it," he said. "Now there are like 23 car companies, too many cars, too many car companies to compete. In 1989, our best year, we sold 300 new Mercurys and 400 used cars. That's because we had a complete line of cars, from small cars to vans to sports cars.
"That's why we're going to expand our late-model used car business, including program cars that have just come off leases or fleets."
Nancy, his wife of 32 years, who runs the bookkeeping end of the business, and their son, Joey, 31, service manager and chief mechanic, and he, salesman unparalleled, will continue as Community Motors.
Only they won't be selling Mercurys for the first time since the 1951 James Dean models were brand new.
Byron can be reached at bsmialek@observer-reporter.com. To hear his column, visit www.observer-reporter.com.