There are loyal customers, and then there's Joseph Macko. The 84-year-old Flint man has bought or leased a new Cadillac every year since 1955, the year Disneyland opened in Anaheim, Calif., and Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., bus.
"You only live one time. Money is to spend," he told The Flint Journal. "I spend it once I get it."
Macko, a retired General Motors Corp. worker, used to buy a new car every year, but he's been leasing the last few years. Last week, he drove home this year's fresh set of wheels — a black 2009 Cadillac DTS — from the Al Serra Auto Plaza in Grand Blanc.
"He looks forward every year to buying a new car," said Gordon Taylor, who has been Macko's salesman for 22 years. "He wants that same vehicle."
Marcella Macko said her husband isn't the spendthrift he might seem — he saves up all year to pay for a new car.
But, she said, she just doesn't get excited anymore about the annual ritual. "He does, but I don't," she said.