My family (grandfather, father, and uncle) owned Warta Motors on Sunrise Highway
 in Merrick (Long Island) NY. They also owned Packard Hempstead in Hempstead NY,
 which was a Packard-only store.

At the Sunrise Highway store, besides Studebaker and Packard, they handled 
Mercedes, DKW, Simca, and some other makes. After Studebaker stopped building 
cars in Hamilton, they took on both Toyota and Datsun, until Toyota threatened 
to drop the franchise if they didn't drop Datsun. Needless to say, they kept 
Datsun and dropped Toyota.

The dealership was closed in late 1969, by which time my grandfather had retired
 to Florida, and my dad & uncle had gotten tired of the high taxes, crime, etc 
in NY and relocated to North Carolina. When they were cleaning out in '69, my 
dad gave Harry Barnes (who visited the dealership often) all the parts he could 
carry off.....mainly older parts. A lot of the parts were thrown down an old 
well in the service department!

All the relatives drove Packards and Studebakers. My grandfather always had 
Packards. My mother and aunt always had a new Studebaker. When I was a small
 boy, my Mother had a '60 Lark hardtop (V8) that my brother would 'borrow' at
 night and outrun the cops in. I was with my mother one day when someone ran a 
stop sign, and the front of the Lark got crunched. (It subsequently got 
repaired.) Her last Studebaker was a '64 Challenger 4-door, 6 cylinder/auto with
 air conditioning! My brother eventually got that car, and it was finally parted
 out in the early '70s. I have a few parts from it (gauges, ignition switch, etc;
 wish I had the perfect red dash and the A/C setup!)

My memories of the Studebakers and Packards from when I was a boy is what got me
 into Studebakers. I have 10, and my dad has one (a '64 Challenger 2-door V8/3 
speed) that is in the middle of a long restoration. No Packards yet, but I still
 want a '55 Clipper hardtop with Torsion Level, or a '56 Executive hardtop.


I am working on a history of the family's dealerships, for either a website or
 magazine article. A lot of the cars sold at the Sunrise Highway store had 
pictures taken of the owner/car upon delivery; my dad still has all these slides.
 He also still has the books that logged the cars sold with purchaser's name, 
serial number, etc. My dad saved some of the invoices from the interesting cars
 and well-known purchasers. Another story is the brand new (just off the carrier
 ) '57 or '58 Golden Hawk that had less than 100 miles on it before it was 
destroyed (with my dad driving) in an dispute with a garbage truck.....the 
garbage truck won.

R1LArk   SDC Forum  (Jan 2006)