How a New Castle man restored a 1969 Ford Mustang at age 12 and many vehicles since
NEW CASTLE, Lawrence County — The automotive industry has been in John Caffro’s blood since he was 4 years old.
“In 1988, my grandfather got me a tractor,” said Caffro, of New Castle. “I used to tinker around with it. And then I would tinker around with weed whackers, push mowers, stuff like that, and tear them down.”
For the past 10 years, he worked at Phil Fitts Ford in New Castle as a master technician.
During his off-time, Caffro turns his attention from curing other people’s cars at the dealership to totally restoring vintage cars in his garage.
His first restoration project started in 1996, at age 12, when he began working on a 1969 Ford Mustang that once belonged to one of his teachers.
Over the course of four years, using money scrounged together through odd jobs and some help from his parents (who supported his hobby through and through), Caffro eventually completed his first of what would soon be many car restorations.
“I was working at the body shop at 13 years old, sanding cars and priming them,” Caffro said. “I was helping Jack Abramovich a little bit at his race shop, and I was a newspaper boy. And then we used to go around the neighborhood cutting grass.”
At first, Caffro stuck mainly to restoring Ford Mustangs, including a 1970 Fastback model which served as his second project in 2003. Eventually, he branched out into other vehicles.
“I did different things. I started getting into Jeeps,” Caffro said. “I went back to my roots and started doing tractors.”
During his youth, Caffro was so engrossed in the automotive world that his parents surprised him with a unique gift one Easter — a basket full of spark plugs.
Not just spark plugs, but Champion brand spark plugs.
“I wanted spark plugs for Easter, because I needed spark plugs for my tractors,” Caffro said. “At the time, Champion spark plugs were 79 cents or something like that. So my mom put a bunch of spark plugs in my Easter basket.”
The family submitted the gift to a local radio station’s “weirdest gift you’ve ever received for Easter” contest, and came in second place. The winner? A puppy.
“It was supposed to be a unique gift,” Caffro said. “Wouldn’t spark plugs be more unique than a puppy?”
Today, Caffro — while still an automotive enthusiast — is finding less time for his passion of restoring cars. He is now married and has two daughters, and in addition to his work as a master technician at the dealership, Caffro has taken on extra work as an independent dealer of Amsoil products.
He also serves on the advisory board for the automotive program at the Lawrence County Career Technical Center, where he went to school and graduated in 2002.
This leaves less time for restoring cars, which can be a time and labor-intensive process even at the best of times.
“I'm very particular about things, so it takes me longer, but it could take thousands of man-hours,” Caffro said. “It depends on the condition of the car or whatnot, but it takes a lot of time.”
Caffro estimates he dedicates a few hours a day, starting at 9 p.m., to car restoration projects.
“From 9 o'clock on is when I can get things done,” Caffro said. “I'm a night person, so I do better at night than I do in the morning.”
However, the biggest obstacle to car restoration projects arguably isn’t time, but money. Caffro said the increasing cost of parts may end up deterring the next generation from following him into the hobby.
“When I started this, you could buy a can of paint for $2,” Caffro said. “Today, you’re looking at $20 for a can of spray paint. It's gotten so expensive to do these cars. You can understand why the young kids don't get into it. They can't get into it. It's just too expensive.”
Caffro said that while car restoration is by no means a cheap hobby, it is a rewarding one for the budding mechanics of tomorrow.
“You’ve got to have in your blood,” Caffro said. “It's a lot of work. It's worth it. It's fun. It's just expensive. And we need the young kids to do this to keep us alive. The older generation’s fading away. We need the young kids to keep it going because if not, it's gonna die.”
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