Andrew Di Dia

Andrew Di Dia (1917-2014), also known as Andy or Andrea, was named after his grandfather Andrea. He was an American-born citizen of the United States, to immigrant parents from Marsala, Sicily. His grandparents along with their son Gaspare and a daughter Jennette emigrated to the United State from Marsala, Sicily on April 16, 1904. His parents were married in Detroit on April 10, 1913 and had three children: Katherine, Andrew, Joseph. He was raised with strong Sicilian and Catholic roots.
DiDia's Italian name was Andrea, but he preferred to go by the nickname Andy. He joined the field of clothes design, but also worked as a bus driver for Detroit’s Department of Street Railways. He stopped working shortly after an accident on January 7, 1948, where he struck a pedestrian Joseph Schaffer 1902-1948, age 45, who was running across the street from north to south at Grand River and Cherrylawn. No charges were ever filed. He was married to Josephine Ceccarelli (1915-1985) until her death.
Di Dia met Bobby Darin during a Detroit concert in 1957. The two soon became friends, and DiDia shared sketches of the car under development. Darin made a few design suggestions of his own, and promised that, if he ever managed to strike it rich, he'd buy DiDia 150, also known as "The DiDia's Dream Car", taken from the song Bobby Darin sang "Dream Lover". Darin proved to be a man of his word, and in 1961 wrote DiDia a check for $150,000 to purchase the car; at the time, The Guinness Book of World Records considered this the highest price ever paid for a custom-built automobile. The car has been donated to the St Louis Museum of Transportation, and had gone under several restoration. Di Dia dropped out of the lime light after the death of Bobby Darin in 1973, only attending some elite car shows such as Concours D'elegance, but mostly returned to designing clothes till his death on February 24, 2014.

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