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Street Scene Car & Custom Bike Show VEHICLE VARIETY
Fundraiser benefits Second Harvest Food Bank of the Mahoning Valley
By Sean Barron
BOARDMAN
It’s easy to assume that Krysta Sylvester’s classic car has a uniform blue, but upon closer inspection, it presents more of its colorful side – depending from which angles it’s viewed.
“It has the latest unicorn chrome,” Sylvester said about her 2014 Maserati, referring to the strips of material surrounding the passenger- and driver’s-side windows that display differing color patterns as seen from different vantage points.
The vehicle has a primary color called blue emozione, which is deeply penetrating and eye-catching to many classic-car fans. It also was among the featured attractions of Sunday afternoon’s seventh annual Street Scene Car & Custom Bike Show in the Chili’s Grill & Bar parking lot, 7303 Market St.
Hosting the four-hour fundraiser was Armstrong Cable.
Proceeds are to benefit the Second Harvest Food Bank of the Mahoning Valley, noted Megan Ellashek, Armstrong’s community-marketing manager.
Last year’s car show brought in about $5,000, a figure Ellashek said she hoped to exceed this year.
Sylvester, a real-estate broker who lives part time in Pittsburgh and Naples, Fla., said her vehicle has been on six trips to and from Florida since she bought it about three years ago. On much shorter excursions, the car is sometimes used to take prospective clients to see pieces of property, she explained.
“The comfort is there as a daily driver, and the performance is there as I want it,” said Sylvester, who recalled that her father was a race-car driver and used to take her and her brother to car shows when they were children.
The Maserati also has on the rear wing, front lip area and elsewhere a material called carbon fiber, which is very light yet has the strength of metal, and was selected partly because the humid, salt-filled Florida air ruined the original chrome, she continued. Other features include after-market tires and rims she added later, along with a vinyl-wrapped front end to protect from stone chips, Sylvester added.
The show’s featured car was Bill Fazzone’s Wimbledon-white 1964 Ford Thunderbird convertible, much of which he rebuilt and had a friend repaint after having bought it about six years ago near Hartford, Conn.
“I had this thing absolutely pulled apart,” the Poland man remembered. “I wanted it to look like the way it did out of the factory.”
The alterations he made were anything but minor. In March 2018, Fazzone removed the original engine, doors, fenders and other sections, then added new tires – all of which took about a year, he explained. The result is a vehicle that looks like it recently came off the assembly line, with a slide-away steering wheel that moves horizontally, a panel of five safety lights, power windows and door locks, push-button AM-FM radio and numerous other features that he thoroughly enjoys spending time in, Fazzone continued.
“My wife and I take it out cruising. It rides like a dream,” he added.
A sample of other classic and vintage vehicles that probably feel like a dream to their owners included a black 1939 Master 85 with a $24,000 asking price, a bright-red 1948 Ford F-1 pickup truck and a red-and-orange 1932 Ford Coupe. Others were a cream-colored two-seat 1939 Ford Gazelle and an array of Corvettes, one of which bore a license plate that left little to the imagination as to its speed capability: “8NT SLOW.”
Motorcycle enthusiasts likely found much to their liking too, such as a 1987 Yamaha Venture, a 2014 Harley Davidson model and a small 1979 Honda.
“You name it, we’ve got it,” Ellashek said about the variety of vehicles in the show.
The fun-filled event also included prizes and trophies in several categories, as well as plenty of oldies music, courtesy of longtime area disc jockey Thomas John.