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3/22/2008 3:34 AM

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For a guy who used to be called "Mercury Joe" because he sold Mercury cars for most of his adult life, he's a guy enjoying a second honeymoon in the automobile business.

And it's a honeymoon that he hopes lasts for a long time.

Until Dec. 13, Joe Mastrangioli operated the last Mercury-only dealership in America, a business that his father started nearly 60 years ago at 574 West Pike Street in Canonsburg.

Joe Sr. died in January 1958, leaving "Mercury Joe" and his mother, Mary, now 92, to soldier on for the Ford Motor Co. and its Mercury division. Senior Fords, back then, or Junior Lincolns; that's what they were in the '50s, '60s and '70s.

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"It was a scary decision to cut our ties with Mercury after all those years," Mastrangioli said one day last week. "We really didn't know what was going to happen."

What happened was that his old customers - and there were plenty of those, to be sure - kept coming, and Ford Motor Co. honored its pledge to its loyal, last Mercury-only dealer by providing Community Motors with as many "program cars" (low- to moderate-mile vehicles driven by company executives or cars coming off long-term leases) as he could handle.

"Business has been fantastic," he said. "I'm getting '07 and '08 Ford program cars, and we've been selling them like crazy. We sold a program car every day the first week of this month.

"The current economy, and the prices that I can sell these program cars for, are working in my favor," he said. "It's like I'm on a business honeymoon. I hope the honeymoon lasts."

It also has helped that the changing status of Commmunity Motors attracted the print media, starting with this column late in December. A 70,000-circulation trade paper, Used Car News, did a feature story on Joe and Community Motors. Automotive News also took note, along with Hemming's Classic Car magazine.

"With all that publicity, we couldn't miss," he said.

Joe also received a personal letter from Ford CEO William Ford, thanking him or his loyalty to Ford cars. Not bad for a guy who thought he was slowly retiring from the new car business to concentrate on repair work in the shop by his son, and to sell clean used cars.

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Anniversary waltzes

March 23 -- Marilyn and Doug Ward of Washington, their 40th

March 24 -- Mary Lou and Sam Cimino of Washington, their 50th

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Birthday candles

March 22 -- Shirley Boling, Jerry Hadix, Ethan Manfredi, Donald Sprowls of Claysville, his 90th

March 23 -- Ralph J. Barnes Jr., Emily Tommasi

March 24 -- Gwenavere McDonald, Jason Pacewicz, Paul Popeck, Jerame Tuman

March 25 -- A.J. Falvo, Gina Zacour

March 26 -- Julia Gevenosky, Carl Meloy of Washington, his 90th

March 27 -- LaVerne Hoge, Mary Jo Poknis

March 28 -- Jeanne Allender, Katzhy Kerchner

Byron Smialek can be reached at smialek@observer-reporter.com.

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