Boyles Motors is one of the last great holdouts; a 65 year-old family owned and operated truck parts and service businesses in Batavia, N.Y.
Family matriarch Eva Fanara, who turns 91 years old later this month, still works four days a week as a receptionist but has long handed handling the day-to-day operations to her son, James Fanara.
“Oh, I’m just baggage now,” Eva told The Batavian. “I’m just here to make sure they behave.”
Eva’s late husband, Vincent, was a regional sales manager for International trucks when the newlyweds moved from Buffalo to Batavia in 1949. Vincent partnered with two other men who recently purchased Boyles Motors, and after the two men died, Vincent – a World War II Veteran who served in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy and received the Croix de Garre and many other battle citations during his Military Career – bought the business outright.
In the early 2000s, Navistar elected to close many of its International Truck dealerships, which cost Boyles Motors its rights to sell new International trucks. It became an affiliate dealership, but Boyles now mostly serves as a parts and service retailer with some used truck sales as well as sales and service for Oshkosh snowplows and military equipment.
