Chandler Classic Cars fighting to preserve past

BRADENTON — Robert Chandler owned seven businesses at the same time years ago.

Today he has culled his business entrepreneurship to one — Chandler Classic Cars on 14th Street West. And despite the death of his son Bradley — a partner in the business — last June of lung cancer, he has decided to carry on.

“I need a reason to get out of bed in the morning,” said the 78-year-old, who founded the business in 1973.

Bradley, 44, a self-taught mechanic and restorer, had run the business in recent years. After he died, Chandler closed the classic car dealership for four months. Now he has reopened and he’s considering his options.

“It depends on the morning,” he grinned, explaining his ambivalence.

In its heyday, Chandler Classic Cars had 20 to 25 cars — Fords, Chevrolets and Mercuries mainly from the ’50s and ’60s — for sale at any one time. Chandler bought the cars from auctions, individuals and through networking connections and then restored them to their original condition and resold them.

Even though the demand for classic cars is as strong as ever, Chandler said he has found it harder and harder to find quality cars to buy.

“We use to go to car auctions and buy a truck carrier full of cars at one time,” said wife, Sylvia, who helped with the bookkeeping and purchasing at the dealership over the years. “Now you can buy one car for the same price you paid for all those cars.”

Billy Gray, a used car dealer in Atlanta, has done business with Chandler since the early ‘70s, buying and selling classics.

“I knew from the first bit of time I spent with him at an auction, he was a straight, down-to-earth, respectable fellow,” Gray said. He has sold 60 to 70 cars to Chandler over the years and says its much harder today to find the quality classics.

“Lots of these cars are going overseas to Sweden, Belgium and Germany,” Gray said.

The price also has gone up.

Gray paid $750 for a 1956 Crown Victoria in 1972. Today, the same car would sell for $25,000.

Chandler still loves the car business. It’s in his blood, he says. The Canadian native started buying and selling cars right after high school and World War II when there was a restriction on how you could buy cars.

“You could only buy cars from dealers in the city you were in,” he said. “I traveled from city to city with my business and would put my name on a list to buy cars dealers wanted and then buy and resell them.”

Several years ago, Chandler got a call from the Danbury Mint, which had seen a 1965 baby blue Ford Thunderbird he had for sale and wanted to use it as a model for a die cast replica the company wanted to produce.

The men from the mint came and spent three weeks at the 14th Street West dealership, photographing and measuring every detail of the car. Now in production, the die cast replicas will sell for $130 a piece.

Today Chandler has about 10 cars for sale including a 1961 red Thunderbird convertible for $35,000 and a black 1963 Mercury for $15,995. He has thought of selling his two lots on 14th Street West and relocating. But Chandler has just renewed his business license so he’ll be around for at least another year.

He still enjoys buying classic cars and restoring them, a specialty not for everyone.

“It separates the men from the boys,” he said.