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TR4/4A A TR4's brush with history...

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Geo Hahn

Geo Hahn

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Started reading a book by CBS Evening News anchor Bob Schieffer who was a young second-shift police reporter for the Fort Worth newspaper the day President Kennedy was assassinated. He tells of hearing the news and racing into the paper's office in his TR4 to man the news desk as most reporters were in the field covering the story. He takes a phone call from Oswald's mother wanting someone to come get her and drive her to the Dallas jail where they were holding her son. He sees the major scoop but also sees that driving into Dallas with the accused assassin's mother in his top-down TR4 probably wasn't quite the right look under the circumstances so he enlists the aid of the automotive editor who had a new Cadillac on loan for 'testing' at the time... and the TR4 misses it's role in the history of that day.
 
Fame... so near and yet so far!
Great story.
 
Hi Geo,

Interesting!

Closest I came to that sort of thing was when I offered to drive my '65 Corvair to the Denver airport to pick up Ralph Nader, who was flying in to make a speech.

The sponsors didn't think it was a good idea. I wonder why?

Cheers!

Alan Myers
San Jose, Calif.
'62 TR4 CT17602L
 
I remember hearing Bob Scheiffer tell this story, though I had no idea a TR4 played a role in the story. Very interesting indeed.
 
The TR4 gets passed over a second time when he is invited to the home of the most influential citizen in Fort Worth to meet the next-door-neighbor's daughter. He says "The Triumph hadn't been good enough to drive Lee Harvey Oswald's mother to Dallas, and I wasn't about to drive it into Westover Hills."

This time he borrowed his mother's car and I guess he made a good impression as he got the girl and they're still married 38 years later.
 
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