Best Used Car Lot

Lawrence Marshall must really love cars. Starting as a mechanic in 1949, Marshall worked his way up the auto food chain to the purchase of a small Chevy dealership in 1969, parlaying that one outlet into the semirural, multibrand megaplex that straddles little Hempstead like an automotive behemoth. In 1999 Marshall sold his dealerships to company spokesman and former Oiler Ray "We clobber big-city prices" Childress. But instead of retiring like your average Rotarian titan, Marshall moved his office to a shed across 290 and opened Lawrence Marshall Antique Cars, which has been steadily expanding ever since -- most recently with an enclosed "museum" building housing over 100 vintage cars and trucks, in addition to the hundreds more stored on the outdoor lot. The enterprise specializes in ready-to-drive pre-1970s models, either meticulously restored or miraculously preserved, and so Marshall spends a good amount of time traveling the country to buy his stock. The result is a smorgasbord of four-wheeled history, from 1912 Model Ts to the familiar litany of early '70s Mopars with their hemis and their 440 six-packs, and a good sampling of everything in between. Museum or not, everything's for sale, from a few thousand-dollar project cars on up to the $20,000 show-winners. General manager Ken Smith guesses it's probably the largest antique car showroom in the country by now, but it's also a browser's paradise. Five dollars' admission -- refunded if you make a purchase -- buys you the run of the place. And yes, they do test-drives. Open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.