A “mistake” brought Norman Dawson into the automotive business at age 16, he said — a ride in the back seat of a 1957 Chevrolet.
“The guy burnt rubber all the way down the block and I was immediately hooked on high-performance cars,” said Dawson, now 74.
That led him to take his first gas station job, the first step on his path toward opening Norman’s Auto Service, now in its 51st year of business in New Hyde Park.
Dawson’s shop at 7740 Hewlett St. has withstood the test of time as many other stations closed around him, he said.
His success and longevity led the Greater New Hyde Park Chamber of Commerce to name him its 2016 Small Businessperson of the Year.
Now Dawson is handing the reins to his son, Doug, as he retires after nearly 60 years in a business he said he truly loves.
“How do you not excel at something when you’re doing what you love?” said Dawson, a Dix Hills resident. “If you just work for money you end up becoming miserable and unhappy. It’s like marrying for money.”
A Bayside, Queens, native, Dawson started working at a gas station in Fresh Meadows in high school and attended automotive night classes after he graduated. He bought the station from the owner and opened on his own in December 1963 before moving to his current New Hyde Park location in 1965.
Dawson ran his shop on a shoestring budget in the early days, sometimes working until midnight to get a customer’s car ready for the next morning so he could get paid for the job sooner, he said.
He never wanted to take the easy way out, as so many business owners often do, he said.
“You weld the back door shut so you can’t escape, and as a result you have to do whatever it takes to make it work,” he said.
Norman’s Auto Service made a name for itself based on its cleanliness and “extremely transparent” customer service, Dawson said.
In New Hyde Park, the shop serves people ranging from doctors at the nearby Long Island Jewish Medical Center to blue-collar workers, he said.
Customers are often skeptical because of past bad experiences with mechanics, but Dawson’s shop wins them over with honesty by going over every bit of work that needs to be done, he said.
Most of his customers now tell him, “Norman, don’t call me, just fix it,” he said.
“I guess you could say that auto mechanics could sometimes be a little intimidating, and he’s not in any way,” said Jerry Baldassaro, president of the Greater New Hyde Park Chamber of Commerce. “He’s reasonable and he’s fair.”
Cars have changed a lot in Dawson’s time, he said, as have attitudes toward them.
The cars are more complex and people are less invested in understanding them and taking care of them, he said.
But regardless of the changes, Dawson said, he still gets a great sense of accomplishment from fixing a car for someone who has struggled with a problem.
“You do it for a sense of pride, and when you have pride in your workmanship it shows,” Dawson said.
Now that he’s retiring, Dawson said, he wants to spend more time fishing, traveling and boating.
But his time under the hood isn’t over — he has three “high-performance” cars of his own to tinker with, he said, including a 1957 Chevrolet Chevelle Supersport, a 2005 Dodge SRT 10 pickup truck and a 2016 Dodge Hellcat with 707 horsepower.
Dawson prefers American cars, he said, “but if you want to park a Ferrari in my driveway and hand me the keys, that’s OK.”
