SEMA News - June 2009
Heritage

By Drew Hardin
Photo Courtesy Source Interlink Media Archives

At the 2008 Los Angeles Auto Show, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger received a two-hour, behind-the-scenes tour of the environmentally friendly vehicles that filled the Show’s halls, led by the Green Car Journal’s Ron Cogan. In 1971, an earlier actor-turned-California-governor examined a different kind of specialty vehicle when Ronald Reagan posed with Steve Krisiloff’s STP-sponsored McNamara/Ford Indy car.

A caption at the bottom of the photo identified the setting as a “national discussion session” for Republican governors held in French Lick, Indiana. “…Reagan of California, a national political figure, was one of 20 governors who got a firsthand look at one of the world’s fastest racing machines,” read the caption.

Reagan, of course, went on to become president in 1981. A lot would have to change for Arnold Schwarzenegger to follow in his footsteps to the White House but, then again, “change” seems to be the operative word these days.