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MEMBERSHIP DRIVE
By Bob Jackson
AUSTINTOWN
Mahoning Valley Mustangs
Video
The car show season is underway and a very special Mustang was on display.
Seriously, there’s no mistaking a Ford Mustang for a station wagon of any make.
When Lucia Martuccio was a kid, she really didn’t know the difference. But once her dad brought home one of Ford’s classic muscle cars, she never really knew anything else.
Martuccio, 35, of Girard, said she was 4 when her father, Sam, brought home the frame of a 1965 Fastback Mustang, which he planned to restore for her brother. But since Sam had been blinded in an industrial accident at work four years earlier, Lucia was often summoned to the garage to assist with things that required her eyesight.
“I knew nothing about cars — I was 4,” said Martuccio. “I knew we had a station wagon. That was it.”
Today, Martuccio is the owner of a pink 1966 Mustang convertible, which she takes to classic car shows. Hers was one of hundreds of cars on display Sunday at the Mahoning Valley Mustangs car show at Quaker Steak & Lube, just off state Route 46.
There were more than 50 Mustangs on the grounds, but the show was open to classic cars of all makes and models. The years and body styles of the people who came out to check out the cars were as varied as those of the cars themselves.
Martuccio said the hours she spent helping her father to restore the first Mustang he brought home was what sparked her interest in the sleek cars, which Ford launched in 1964.
“I told my dad that I wanted [a Mustang], but it had to be a convertible and it had to be pink,” she said, laughing.
When he brought a car home in August 2008, she assumed he was going to restore it for one of his grandchildren.
“I didn’t think it was for me,” she said.
But three months later, when her father asked whether pink was still her color of choice, she knew.
Two years later, the car was done, and it was hers. Even though a 2012 Jeep Wrangler is her daily driver, she loves taking the pink racer out on the roads when the weather turns nice.
“Even my nephews want to ride in it,” she said. “They don’t mind that it’s pink. They just know that people are going to be looking. They love the attention.”
Don and Nancy Evans of Lake Milton, who serve as treasurer and vice president, respectively, of the MVMC, said the club’s annual car show traditionally had occurred at the former A&W restaurant on Boardman-Canfield Road, until the business closed. It’s the first area car show of the season and serves as the club’s fundraiser and membership drive event.
The Evanses own a 1965 Mustang hard-top, which they said is identical to the car they owned when they got married 47 years ago.
Chuck and Marigene Settle of Volant, Pa., said they came to the show because of their mutual love of classic cars. The couple has a 1967 Chevrolet Nova that they take to car shows each year.
“I had [a Nova] when I graduated from high school,” Chuck said of why they chose to buy that particular car. “My friends and I all used to cruise in our cars back then. Now everybody I know has their own classic car, just like we did then.”
Ron and Donna Horning of Boardman had brought their 1970 Mustang to the show, and were eager to talk about it. Ron bought the car nine years ago from a man in Pittsburgh.
“I’ve been a big fan of [Mustangs] for years,” he said. “Basically because you can very cheaply make them go very fast.”
He’s raced the car — white with dual blue racing stripes down the middle — locally a few times at Quaker City Dragway near Salem, but they generally just take the car out for pleasure drives and to car shows. He also owns a 2007 Mustang GT and a limited edition 2002 Mustang Saleen.
Donna said she doesn’t mind riding shotgun in the hot cars but prefers muscle of a different kind when she’s behind the wheel.
“I have a Dodge Ram [pickup] truck and a Jeep,” she said, laughing.