Offshoreonly.com - Don Aronow the man , myth , and legend

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Quote:

Originally posted by T2x
Actually it was Bob Hammond who brought the vee bottom hull to the masses with his Glastron hulls.... Aronow , at best, built a handful of boats for quirky rich racers, mostly in and around Florida. Aronow built a few hundred boats all told. Hammond built thousands. Aronow's boats were neither revolutionary nor particularly unique, and he basically dissolved as soon as speeds exceeded 80 mph and catamaran designs arrived. His awkward attempts at cats showed the true limitations of his marine design knowledge (cut some old hull in half and spread it with a tunnel).

Aronow has two claims to fame in my opinion:

1. He was a heck of a racer, although he never saw much over 70-75 mph in competition, and , in reality, wasn't as good as Bill Sirois, or Odell Lewis.

2. He was the best self promoter in the history of the sport. Through the efforts of his trusty henchman, John Crouse, he managed to garner about five times as much publicity as anyone else for any race he was in..... let alone won........ Believe it or not, he was not the only one who finished races with a torn shirt and bloody arms...but you'd never know it, from the media reports of the time.

I met him a few times........ and he was big, pushy, and clever. His whole demeanor was about power and charisma..... give the devil his due, but his actual talent and "contributions" were much more about sizzle than steak.

T2x

T2x........I certainly respect your opinion concerning Don and his accolades...however ...I think you are selling him a little short......Isn't it true that without him...we wouldn't have Magnum....Formula....Donzi.....Cigarette.....and yes.....maybe not even Apache whether you believe it or not.....to say that he built a handful of boats for a few quirky rich racers is understating it at best.....as far as his cats were concerned....given the time to perfect them....who knows where he could have gone with them....although....he was on the backside of his career by then no doubt......but I think you are dismissing him a little when you sum up the man and his career in this fashion......I will agree with you however that he did know how to play the publicity game and Crouse was in no small part responsible for this.....But as they say....he was definitely a man for his time......and I think he deserves a little more credit than you give him......my humble opinion.....Rich

Quoted by joker "Blue Thunder is a must read if your into this stuff - BH"

a must read... too bad the info was so incorrect the publishers pulled it from the bookstands as part of the the settlement for the lawsuit against them. If you have a copy you have a true collectors item....just not a correct collectors item

magnum-bankshot, Do you have the movie boat?

Lee,

Which movie boat are you referring too? I know I have one of them that's for sure.

not any more...shes sold...sorry. The lead charachter in the movie was loosely based on Don though.

magnum-bankshot, Welcome to OSO. When I first saw your name it took a second because I haven't heard that name in a long time and my memory is a little fuzzy (Stoli's). Please fill us in on all the details of the boat, movie, etc etc, I'm sure everybody here would greatly appreciate it.

Havasu cig and Craig223 are the new owners of speed kills .

Have fun reading it.

Mike

You have mail

Lets also not forget that Don wasn't the only local boat builder to be gunned down during that time period. Nobody seems to worried about who killed them or for that matter if they ever found the killer. But Don was a big name, with big connections so the brass had to pin someone to the crime.

I guess the saying is true. I"t's not what you do, it's who you are that matters".

Brian

Tommy Adams, founder of Signature Powerboats, was gunned down on I-95 7 years before Don.

Lets also not forget that the day after he was killed, Don was to testify in a Grand Jury about Ben Kramers business dealings.

Lee, im working on some pics of the ole magnum for you. My grand kids got me this computer for Christmas and im kinda new to all of this. Im real good at scanning my hand though...