TALL ORDER: Preserving Buffalo’s
automotive heritage is a big job. Almost as big as these circa 1928 Canadian-made gas pumps… the largest known to exist in the world.

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If you ever had a car that you loved… I mean really loved, you already understand Jim Sandoro. You and he — in fact most of us here in Western New York — share a very special bond. Cars.

Of the many positive distinctions to which our community can proudly lay claim, there’s no arguing with the fact that automobiles are a big part of our history and our identity. Just how big a part you might not fully appreciate until you’ve spent a few hours talking cars with Sandoro. The man definitely knows cars.

He should. He’s lived them.

You Never Forget Your First Love.

“My first car memory was when I was three or four years old,” he says. “We lived on Lisbon Avenue between Eggert and Bailey. The grandfather of the family next door was a chauffeur for a wealthy family. But during World War II, they couldn’t get tires for their car — a Pierce-Arrow, so they gave it him. He put it up on blocks in his garage, and there it sat,” he adds, off the road but not off the radar of one very curious little boy.

“There was always this mystique about that car,” he recalls, the awe still detectable in his voice. “We were told ‘Do not play on the Pierce-Arrow.’” With its great sloping fenders, it was, of course, irresistible. So even though it was clearly “taboo,” up they’d climb and down they’d slide, experiencing thrills he could hardly have known would turn into a lifelong fascination.

“It just intrigued me. What was so important about this car that I couldn’t play on it?” Ultimately intrigued gave way to curious, which led to studied attention to a subject that wasn’t covered in the school books of the day. But it was, he learned, a major chapter in the story of Buffalo’s automotive heritage.

O.K. That was the late ’40s. Let’s fast forward 10 years or so and rejoin our budding car buff, now living only a few blocks from the North Buffalo site of the original Pierce-Arrow factory at Elmwood and Great Arrow… which was, he points out, actually named for the car, an indication of just how big a presence the company was in its heyday.

Growing up in shadow of automotive history had a very telling effect on him, Sandoro says. While his friends were drawn to the neglected Pierce-Arrow building for the rock-throwing target value of its windows, he was busy searching for automotive “artifacts” of its grander days. It wasn’t all that surprising, then, that when it came time for a now 18-year-old Sandoro to buy his first car in 1962, it was a Ford Model A coupe, circa 1930.

It cost him all of $100, but to a young man starting what would be a lifelong automotive affair of the heart, it was priceless. It was also a key intersection in the road trip of events that would eventually impact not just his future but, as you’ll see, Western New York’s as well. But let’s not put the cart before the horsepower. There’s still a car to get to know: the legendary Pierce-Arrow.

Do One Thing and Do It Well.

Having a passion for antique cars, Sandoro concedes, is a mixed blessing. Aside from the fact that his precious Model A clearly couldn’t have registered very high on the ’60s “Cool Meter,” there was also the matter of recapturing its former glory. Unable to find anyone else willing to tackle the restoration job, Sandoro had little choice but to dive in and do the work himself. And once he started, he never looked back.

Even with detours that took him through earning a law degree and working as a law clerk, all roads seemed to lead Sandoro to the same destination. Without really trying, he became the personification of the old adage that the secret to success is to do one thing and do it well. The realization that he loved automobiles, their culture and their history left very little doubt what that one thing would be.

At 60, Jim Sandoro is at a crossroad in what has become a remarkable journey. His early interest in vintage cars progressively picked up speed over the 40some intervening years, and today he is among the most sought-after experts in that field. It’s taken him quite literally across the country and around the world.

In his capacity as a consultant, he helped international car manufacturer Mitsubishi launch the first antique vehicle auction in Japan. And on the more colorful side of the profession, he’s provided similar services to some pretty well-known celebrities, counting stars like Jay Leno and Steve McQueen among his personal friends.

Stateside, as secretary of the National Association of Auto Museums, he’s visited nearly every one in America. And throughout these travels, he emphasizes, everything he’s learned has helped shape his vision and strengthen his commitment to what he sees as the culmination of his lifetime love affair with the legacy of the Pierce-Arrow and Western New York’s rich automotive history.

Putting WNY on the Automotive Map.

With the support of other local individuals and companies who share his passion, Sandoro founded the non-profit Buffalo Transportation Pierce-Arrow Museum in 1997, which he now serves as Executive Director. When fully realized, the project promises to put Buffalo back on the map as a major transportation destination. It’s already off to a roaring start.

He started by purchasing a building in downtown Buffalo at Michigan Avenue and Seneca Street that appropriately enough housed Mack trucks from the late 1930s into the m’50s. He completely renovated it to create a 20,000 sq. ft. home for the Buffalo Transportation Pierce-Arrow Museum, which opened to the public in 2001 with an enormously successful celebration of the centennial of the Buffalo-built Pierce-Arrow automobile.

But that’s just the first of many new chapters Sandoro plans to add to the area’s vehicular history. And considering the rich tradition he aspires to continue, that’s no small ambition. Buffalo, after all, has quite an impressive automotive pedigree.

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