Walter Cronkite on Sports Cars

[Jim 58 BN6]

This was on BaT this morning, in an ad linked to Cronkite's Gogomobile racer:

https://youtu.be/bySosXZHnfI

It's probably been posted sometime in the past, but I thought I would share it anyway. Jim

 

[HealeyRick]

Here's a story about Cronkite's Healey 100:


The Times-Union: When you signed your contract with CBS some 20 years ago, did you actually dash out across the street and buy an Austin Healey 3000?
CBS News Managing Editor Walter Cronkite: Well, that’s a distorted version of a true story – not when I signed my CBS contract and not an Austin Healey 3000.
When I was already working for CBS, I had a business manager there primarily to see that I didn’t spend all my money, which wasn’t very great in those days, but all my checks went to him.
I was down the Jersey shore where we were summering and I got a lecture and the expense money with it. In those days I got $1,500 if I was real lucky for a lecture, I think about $287.35-or-something expense money with it, so it came to $1,787.35.
It came to me by accident instead of going to my business manager. So I had this check in my hot hands, and I did rush out and buy a used sports car, which I had always wanted – an Austin Healey – but it was an old Austin Healey, the first Austin Healey four-cylinder before the six came out, and before the 3000. It was two generations removed from the 3000.

https://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2...gendary-walter

Cronkite was a member of the famed Madison Avenue Sports Car Driving and Chowder Society that still meets at Sardi's restaurant in New York, formerly owned by the late 100S owner Vince Sardi: https://www.mascdcs.org/

 

[John Turney]

An annual budget for racing of $500!! Not anymore.

 

[dougie]

An annual budget for racing of $500!! Not anymore.

$500.00 won't even pay your entry fee for one event now.......It's about $1500-$2000 per weekend, even more if you're traveling.

 

[steveg]

Cronkite made a Twentieth Century episode: "Sports Cars - The Rage to Race". I remember he had a BJ8. This appears to be it, although under a different title:
https://youtu.be/bySosXZHnfI