New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his 1975 Chevy Corvette paid a visit to Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano's Cruise to the Show at on Sunday.
The second annual event, presented by Mangano, included a parade of hundreds of vintage cars that began at Briarcliffe College on Stewart Avenue in Bethpage, traveled along Hempstead Turnpike through Levittown and ended at Eisenhower Park, where a car show took place.
Cuomo drove his Corvette into the park and parked it next to Mangano's 1969 Chevy Corvette in the show lot. The governor and the county executive then proceeded to view the cars that took part in the car show.
Mangano said that the idea behind that path was to get the classic cars to cruise across a classic Long Island highway. "If you grew up here in Nassau County years ago, [Hempstead Turnpike] was a big cruise route for everyone to show off their car on Friday night and Saturday night," said the county executive. "We incorporated that as part of our cruise to the show."
Cuomo originally bought the Corvette in 1977, while he was in college. (He estimated that he paid $4750 for it.) "It only has 61,000 miles on it," said the governor. "It's been re-done a couple of times, but it's all stock [parts]. Nothing has changed. It's a question of repairing and replacing."
The governor, who also owns a Pontiac GTO, doesn’t maintain the cars as show cars; he frequently drives them. He even mentioned that he was teaching his daughters how to drive in the GTO. (“That’s a work in progress,” he joked.)
Cuomo also had high praise for Mangano's Corvette. "That 427 is something special," he said. "That is something you pass on from generation to generation."
The governor and the county executive said that they’ve discussed plans to expand the show in the future, citing the profits that car shows bring.
"We want to work with the Governor to make this a big East Coast event," said Mangano. "We're modeling it after the Woodland Cruise-In (a car show in California)."
"Our state does not do as much as it could do," Cuomo added. "There are car shows that attract thousands of people in this country, and people come and they stay for days."
“Each year, the show gets bigger and bigger,” said Mangano. “It attracts more tourists to come visit us here in Nassau County, leave their money here, help us run the government on it. It’s just a great day to celebrate our rich history through the automobile.”
