Blog Post

While I appreciate looking at cars and talking about cars and watching cars race and reading about cars and collecting toy cars and all other things related to cars, the one thing I enjoy more than all the others is driving cars. Whether suffering behind the wheel of a Smart Car in rush hour or thrashing something exotic around a track, behind the wheel of a car is where I like to be.

Yesterday was road trip day. It’s not an official national holiday or anything but it is important to pick a date, grab a co-pilot and hit the road with some arbitrary destination in mind. Mike and I chose to drive to Rochester, NY to try some of the Ghost Wings from The Distillery. Getting to The Distillery was secondary to spending time rolling through the rural roads of up state New York and just seeing what there is to see. We had fun spotting various cars, talking about work and occasionally stopping to check out something that looked interesting.

Buffalo Road Imports in Clarence, NY

I’m not sure what it was about Buffalo Road Imports that called out to me as we drove past but it was strong enough to make me turn around at the next intersection to investigate. The front porch has doors to the left and the right but only the door to the left will actually let you into the building. The door to the right is blocked by the massive amounts of stock in the store.

It’s a good thing I was travelling with my buddy, Mike, instead of my wife. Otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten to enjoy over an hour digging through one of the most impressive die cast inventories I’ve ever seen. The first thing after getting in the door was the fact that the store is filled floor to ceiling with inventory. It was hard to focus in on any one thing at first as I tried to adjust to the overwhelming number of things to look at. I wasn’t sure to start with the incredible selection of 1:87 scale cars, the entire shelf dedicated to Siku diecast cars, the James Bond section or if I should walk to the back and see what the display cabinets held.

There were three employees working at maintaining inventory and shipping packages with a beautiful old Labrador keeping an eye on things. Mike and I were left to our own, digging through bins of old Matchbox, Buby, Corgi, Johnny Lightning and Tomy diecast cars.  We each found an armload of cars for our collections.

Cashing out, I got to chat with the store owner, Brandon Lewis. He started the business in 1978 with a focus on construction vehicles and trucks but has grown to include train, planes and automobiles. Looking in the display cases, it’s easy to see the construction vehicles are his true passion and he has been organizing the International Model Construction and Truck Show for the past eight years in the local fire hall. He commented that nothing Mike and I purchased are listed on his web site.

Getting home, I checked out his web site at www.constructionscalemodels.com to see what he does have listed. Sadly, the web site is a bit of a train wreck and doesn’t do justice to the store. I’m guessing the yellow and black color scheme were chosen to reflect the construction theme of the inventory but it just makes the site hard to look at. Navigation isn’t much better with drop down menus and lots of broken image links requiring visitors to hit the back button on their browser too often.

If you find yourself in the area between Buffalo and Rochester some time, I strongly encourage stopping in to visit this store. The web site provides clear directions and a bit of history if you want to know more. I’m glad that I stopped in.

We did make it to our selected destination and enjoyed some of the hottest wings I’ve ever eaten. I’m looking forward to my next road trip and what I might find.