Bernard Curry’s name is firmly decaled upon the subconscious minds of drivers all over the metropolitan area due to the success of his Curry Corporation, which owns and operates automobile dealerships in Scarsdale, Yorktown, and elsewhere. He died Sunday at his home in Scars dale at age 84.

Curry was an outsized figure in more ways than one. He stood 6 feet 3 inches and continued to pursue athletics into his later years, regularly skiing Baldy Mountain at Sun Valley, Idaho, with a U.S. Olympic Team pass, golfing, shooting skeet, and piloting a jet until his vision worsened a few years ago.

In recent years, Curry Corporation did a brisk $280 million or more annually in business, making it among the largest privately owned businesses in the metropolitan area, according to Crain’s New York Business.

Among Curry’s businesses were dealerships of Honda, Acura, Ford, Subaru, and Chevrolet; the latter he inherited from his father.

Curry was born in Washington Heights in 1920, a year after his father, Bernard Sr., opened the B.F. Curry Day & Night Service Chevrolet dealership on 125th Street.

The Chevrolet franchise would remain the flagship of the Curry Corporation dealerships, although it and the family later moved to Scarsdale.

Curry liked to regale friends with tales of golfing with Babe Ruth, a customer of his father’s who became a family friend and sometimes stayed at their home in Scarsdale.

“He was a great guy and like a big kid always,” Curry told the Journal News of Westchester. “He laughed all the time and loved to joke and play tricks on kids. He would let me drive his Cadillac.” Eventually, Curry could drive any Cadillac on his own lot.

There was never any question of Curry’s career path, and he spent his holidays in between terms at Dartmouth working as a shop mechanic for his father. After college and service in the South Pacific during World War II, Curry worked for his father, then opened his own dealership, selling Chevrolet coupes and sedans that retailed for about $1,200.

He was an early advertiser on radio programs hosted byTex McCrary and Hinx Falkenberg and others, broadcasting commercials featuring a fictional character known as “Colonel Curry.”

In the 1960s, Curry founded General Rent-A-Car, which leased cars out of Florida. He also owned a liquor store in White Plains, speculated in real estate, and at one time his family held the mortgage for the Leewood Golf Club in Westchester.

Curry himself preferred Winged Foot in Mamaroneck, where he was reputedly proud owner of a two handicap.

Curry had regular tables at the 21 Club and Le Cirque, where he celebrated his 80th birthday. A committed Republican, he observed with delight the recent presidential election from afar in Cape Town, South Africa. He had just returned after a 13-hour flight to the home in Scarsdale where he had lived for 76 years when he suddenly expired.

Bernard Curry Jr.

Born June 20, 1920, in Washington Heights; died of a heart attack November 7 in Scarsdale; survived by his children, Barbara Curry-James, Diane Trimper, Robin Bernacchia, Leigh Curry Young, eight grandchildren, and his former wife, Anne Keane Harmon.