Embracing Vintage Cars in Cat Skills

The driving season at the Catskills is fairly short, shortened by snow and salt in the long winters, and spring is a rainy season that can sometimes feel endless.

But now that summer has its heart and people can mingle again, Jared Lamanna wants to provide a place for them to get together and bring their cars.

coffee shop-garage-slash-ex-dealership, Churchill Classics CoffeeIt is intended to be, with colorful indoor and outdoor seating, a food truck in the side yard, and half a dozen cars for sale in the showroom. Lamanna plans a weekend rental business for old trucks, equipped to land – a rugged country camp – and includes downloadable guides to take advantage of the area’s abundant trails and growing restaurant and performance scene.

“We will also be hosting monthly art openings with local artists, car and coffee meetings on our wonderful local roads,” Mr. Lamanna said. “And the fact that this is a functioning shop adds to its appeal. You can hear a real mechanic swearing in the background.”

A cappuccino maker has already been set up in the new cafe, which will open next month. 1960s Faema E61. Mr. Lamanna looks at the device, the standard setter of medieval Italian design and engineering, as if it were one of the marvels of Alfa Romeo, Fiat and Lancia that filled the rest of its space.

“I can get something new and effective,” he said with a smile. “So it’s more reliable than the Italian car of the 1960s.”

Mr. Lamanna, 35, opened Churchill Classics in 2016 at a former hardware store in Eldred, NY, a town in western Sullivan County, about a two-hour drive northwest of New York City. At first it was a vintage car mechanic and dealership. Mr. Lamanna and Simon Arscott, a car collector and business partner, hoped to tap into a local market. Monticello Motor Club — a luxury private racetrack nearby, of which Mr. Arscott is a member.

That job didn’t happen. “They do everything at home there,” said Mr. Lamanna.

But Churchill’s bizarre presence spread, and he soon became a target for owners of finicky old European cars in the area, including myself. Mr. Lamanna’s customers see him as a skilled and reliable mechanic who is willing to delve into online forums for an ingenious, less costly workaround to fix the rattling differentials of your (my) 1990 Range Rover, for example.

In 2020, Mr. Arscott sold his stake in the business to Mr. Lamanna, who decided to expand the venture’s reach to make it more community-focused. Organized weekend excursions for local enthusiasts; organized events in space. The traction was beginning to develop.

Things had to stop when the pandemic hit but things exploded. Given its proximity to New York City, the area has experienced a minor population boom as weekends become full-time workers and newcomers arrive seeking access to nature and affordable housing.

Mr. Lamanna has found a place for himself. “People have called to ask for help with project cars they have had time to work on,” he said. “Or they moved here and bought an Outback, but wanted to approach something less emotionless, because an old truck became their refuge because the new cars almost drove themselves.”

It has sold dozens of old Toyota Land Cruisers and Land Rover Range Rovers in low to mid-five figures. Just hired a third mechanic.

The car scene is growing elsewhere, too. At a former Ford dealership in nearby Narrowsburg, Fred Twomey is on the verge of opening his eighth restaurant in the New York City group Bar Veloce, next door to transportation. (Veloce means fast in Italian.) Vintage Vespa scooters are decoratively lined up outside, as in their other locations. But a mid-60s Mustang parked up front in the basement for clues to another automotive secret.

“We closed all our locations in the city during the pandemic and I spent a lot of time here,” said Mr Twomey, a weekend home in the Catskills. “With the influx of new people in the area, I thought this was the perfect time to center.”

Mr. Twomey described the various modular spaces he created with Karl Wasner, an architect, in the towering, lighted bar of the newly built restaurant. Modern Cat Skills Firm using sliding reclaimed wood walls.

“We’ll have an espresso bar at the entrance before the bar opens in the morning,” said Mr. Twomey. “We will have two private tasting rooms, a smaller one in the old office and a larger one in the old showroom. And upstairs, on the roof, we have a 60-person deck.”

For now, the roof deck will open in early August and serve food and drink Wednesday through Sunday evenings, but we hope the rest of the indoor spaces open this fall regardless of the pandemic.

But down a narrow staircase is a three-compartment shop that once contained the dealer’s service department. Mr. Twomey has a modern plan for the site. “We want to breathe new life into old American cars, so we’re going to convert old Mustangs to run on electric power,” he said.

This new venture, Narrowsburg Motor Works, will supply non-working, but solid, first-generation Mustangs and a bolt-on conversion kit from a reputable Southern California supplier, Electric GT, to replace Ford’s noisy internal combustion engines with quiet, battery-powered electric motors.

“We will upgrade them to modern safety standards and add a little customization such as wood-frame steering wheels,” said Mr Twomey. “And they will be the perfect second car in your cottage. Luxury but not pretentious. Fun and friendly.”

It hopes to launch conversions later this year, with a goal of selling the cars for $75,000 to begin with. To test the app, he first converts the shop’s truck, a 1970s Ford F100 pickup truck.

“The mechanics who worked at the dealership before I bought it were skeptical at first,” Mr. Twomey said. “But they came to this idea.”

This also applies to local mechanics, according to Churchill. “Most of my work consists of advice from the parent repairmen around here,” said Mr. Lamanna. “Finally, a few years later, I called someone to thank them. They said: ‘No, thanks joyful. You serve everyone. We don’t want to touch those weird old European cars!”

Mr. Lamanna also worked with New York City connections to expand the Catskills empire. With another venture, he teamed up, took his client list, and branded it to a group of city investors who turned a former roller rink in the nearby town of Yulan into a vintage car storage facility (and co-working space). It will be called Churchill Classics Collective and will open in September.

“We will have 40-car space, a professional detailing station, and even a car concierge who can deliver and pick up one of your cars,” Mr. Lamanna said during a tour of the concrete-floored cavern. “We will also get initial rights to mediate any sale of their cars when we register people for storage. So if someone sees something on the site they might be interested in buying, we can help us reach an agreement.”