He was the type of guy that if he liked you, he loved you. Her son Adam Kimmel is a menswear designer. [1] His father owned a gas station and then a taxi company which collapsed during the Great Depression. Speculation about who the killer might be ran from jilted lovers to jealous husbands to Meyer Lansky to the CIA. The deals off. Im guessing Don kept some of the under-the-table money. Hes the only person Ive ever known like that. Boat International Media Ltd 2008 - 2022. The secret to happiness is taking risks: Don Aronow understood that motto as well as anyone who ever lived. They pulled him out, he was pale, he had gone unconscious at some point. The University of Florida standout athlete Michael was the one who suffered serious injuries in a vehicle accident in 1970. (Captains note: we think he means money.) Her father was extremely wealthy and Don once told me he was going to take Shirley to California if the old man didnt cut him into the business., Michael Aronow After he was working with the family for a few years, he went off on his own and started building homes, then shopping centres and industrial parks all over northern New Jersey. He went to 188th Street in Miami and decided he wanted to put a plant there. You make real money when you sell the company. Certainly, young Don became wealthy by building and selling tract houses in New Jersey. Youre a businessman too. The idea of bad guys outracing other bad guys and seizing their fortunes appealed to Aronow reasoned The Washington Post five days after his murder. Retired President Lyndon B. Johnson owned several 16ft. Donzi speedboats on his Texas ranch with which he would race his Secret Service agents. He was formidably competitive both on and off the water, brutally handsome and adroit at negotiating the line between the legal and the illicit at least until the very end. In these circumstances, it would have been extraordinary if the drug cash hadnt found its way into Thunderboat Row and its fabled go-fast boats. He was inquiring about a 60ft boat and alluding to a mysterious man he worked for and who he would kill for, if need be. Again, he sold his company and started a new one, Magnum, evidently named after the double-sized bottles of champagne. Mega-priced and obscenely over-powered, Aronow's sleek craft have set 25 world speed records, won more than 300 major races and earned a dozen world ocean racing champions. Kramer was already serving a life term in jail without the possibility of parole due to his convictions in 1988 and 1989 for narcotics trafficking and possession of a firearm, as well as his 1990 conviction for an unsuccessful helicopter escape attempt from a federal prison outside of Miami. Aronow was bigger than life, and he was also a boat designer. Some of the most popular types of speedboats were the Cigarette, Donzi, Formula, and Cary. He had first wanted to get into motor racing as a hobby, citing his rich status from running the Aronow Corporation, a construction company. Michael Peters was a contracted designer to Aronow from 1981 to 1986, and was then hired full-time. And I can tell you, the day he was murdered there were phone calls to the King of Jordan, the King of Spain, George Bush. However, when the Customs Service found out about the younger Kramers criminal reputation, they put the kibosh on the transaction, Allan Brown Ben Kramer bought USA Racing from Aronow and apparently there was some money under the table. And Don would say, Yeah we dont have any 28s, but Im building a 35 for myself and I could sell that to you. That was classic Aronow. Don was the only person who gave me more than a platitude he gave me a job. In reality, Don had already amassed a million dollars before relocating to Miami with his family. On February 3, 1987, Aronow was murdered in his car at the end of 188th Street in North Miami Beach where his boat companies operated. Hed knock you right down., Allan Brown Don was so reckless with shit like that. I went over there and he had holes all over him. A world-champion boat racer who enjoyed wild success in business, he was also an unapologetic playboy and fabled bon vivant. My Legacy: Inside Codecasa's 56m superyacht that champions traditionalism, Mimi La Sardine: The 33.5m explorer designed with a little help from Pinterest, My Song: Sailing in symphony on board the first ClubSwan 80, Interior designer Katharine Pooley turns her hand to boats, 130+ superyachts flock to St Barths for New Year's celebrations, Celebrities spotted on superyachts during the holidays. Some people bad-mouth him, Oh he did this, he robbed that, well thats shame on you. Ultimately, Kramer pled no contest to second-degree murder. And hes bellowing trying to say something. Aronow, it seems, would sell anybody a boat, especially for cash, but if you said you were using it to smuggle drugs, Don wouldnt have anything to do with you, asserted Mike Kandrovicz from USA Racing Team. You had to be able to match. ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for watching! Wally Tatomir: Death And Obituary What Is The Cause Of The Equipment Manager&Death? Ben Aronoff's success in business and as a successful boat racer hampered his personal life and caused a separation between him and his wife. After purchasing Aronows USA Racing Team, Kramer and the latter got into a business dispute, but after the Customs Service refused to do business with him, Kramer was obliged to give it back to Aronow. Everyone who knew him has a story to tell. Katheryn Winnick and John Travolta in Speed Kills ( Source : imdb ) Ben and his wife Emily also had a son named Andrew. They could not countenance procuring drug interdiction boats from a firm owned by a convicted smuggler and predictably moved to cancel the procurement contract. Still subject to a non-compete agreement with Cigarette which hed bought back, then sold again in 1982 Aronow was forbidden from producing deep V monohulls. "And they're entitled to spend it any damn way thay want.". He retired and moved to Florida 10 years later -- a millionaire in his early 30's, his fortune spawned by the thousands of tract homes Aronow had built and sold throughout northern New Jersey. by The Captain | Oct 12, 2021 | Articles | 0 comments. Further reading. (ABOVE) RICH AND FAMOUS: Aronow famously kept company with people from all walks of life. [2] In 1947, he returned to the USA and completed his studies graduating from Brooklyn College in 1948 with a physical education degree[1] earning letters in football, wrestling, and track. Also read:Queen Elizabeth II: Death And Obituary What Happened To Her? On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a 0% approval rating and an overall rating of 2.5/10. This was December of 86. It was all downhill from there. [One of those characters was a race-boat driver and drug smuggler named Ben Kramer. His boats won over 350 offshore races, two world championships, and three U.S. championships as his career grew. Lipschutz: I never had any inkling that Don was involved in something illegal. Or man, his brother Robin added. (Captains note: this means party animal.). His father said it had to do with something called the Depression. During his quarter-century-long reign as the undisputed king of Thunderboat Row, Aronow was a lot of different things to a lot of different people. You should have seen that pilot's face.". Magnum Marine was responsible for Donalds first World Championship victory in 1927. [3] Ben Kramer, winner of the 1986 American Power Boat Association Offshore Championship, pleaded no contest to manslaughter in 1996. WebThree weeks before he was murdered, Aronow had a pensive, reflective talk with his wife, Lillian, a former girlfriend of Jordan's King Hussein. How much does it cost to charter a Below Deck yacht? A five-year non-compete agreement with Cigarette Racing, one of the companies hed sold, dated to 1982 and was about to expire. Bush had long been an admirer of Aronows sleek vessels and had equally been disarmed by the man himself. Saccenti: He used to say youre never gonna make a lot of money building boats. Besides the states weak case, there were other, more fundamental doubts over whether Kramer had arranged to have Aronow shot. Witnesses assert that as Aronow rolled down his window, the other driver allegedly started shooting. He was larger than life. If you are using a VPN, try disabling it. A guy would come looking at a boat with a girl, and the guy would ask How much? And Don would go, Seventy grand. The guy would say, Thats too much. And Don would say every time, I think you should go get a Bayliner then, this is way too much boat for you. And the guys would be ripping their pockets open trying to give him money! Included in the settlement was $1.25 million in cash, a million-dollar Miami waterfront home and a Rolls-Royce. [1][2] In 1959, at age of 32, the now-millionaire Aronow moved to Miami with his family, where he began racing boats as a hobby.[2]. [With lots of money and charisma, not to mention starting-quarterback good looks, Aronow soon became a ladies man of legendary status in Miami circles.]. But Aronow may have possessed a darker side that even he could not outrun and in the end, he wound up as nothing more than a target for an assassins bullet. It was just one of the unusual clients Aronow had dealings with: oil-rich Arabs, Princess Caroline of Monaco and the Shah of Iran. A pattern emerged whereby Aronow would sell his companies and then seek to eclipse them. Just lining up. And he became hooked on racing and thats how it all began. After divorcing his first wife, Shirley, with whom he had three children, Aronow married Lillian Crawford, a Wilhelmina fashion model and socialite. In the real-life offshore racing seasons, a majority of the contestants might well turn out to be drug runners say, George Morales, Sal Magluta and Willie Falcn, all convicted of cocaine trafficking. Kramer got a 19-year sentence for manslaughter to run concurrently with a life term for marijuana smuggling. More plausibly, he was drawn to the Sunshine State by its warmth, excitement and a different form of escapism, as many tend to be. From being a huge success in the construction industry, he went on the being a legend as a powerboat designer and racer. What Happened to Speed Kills Racer Ben Aronoff? To finance the development, he sold more civilised versions, with teak decks and sleeping quarters, to the general public. The year Aronow won his first world championship as an international powerboat driver, he says. You gotta do your homework. During the day were asked to patrol their race course during events for emergency rescues, a Coast Guard official told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Don Aronow: (frowning) You mean back when I was a kid? Wylie, the second son, says that he helped start the Bored Ape Yacht Club. Claudia is a New York-based artist. [1] He had two elder sisters, Sylvia and Lillian. You never knew who might show up here, from royalty and high-born celebrity clients to drug-dealing low-lifes, by way of government officials, heads of the various boat firms and a diverse population of workers who earned their livings here. Having made a fortune in the construction business in New Jersey, building homes and shopping centres, Aronow hastily relocated to Florida in 1961. But he knew from Bertrams experience that the way to promote and build his company was by winning races. Some people say he was hiding from the mob. You can talk to anyone, but every night he was at home.. Peters: The upstairs apartment above his office was kind of famous. A guy comes in with the money and you build a boat for them and you never know. Bob Saccenti The real Don was sitting at a business table negotiating deals. Aronow's Cigarette has also become the low slung get-away boat of choice for South Florida's high-rolling drug smugglers.? From being a huge success in the construction industry, he went on the being a legend as a powerboat designer and racer. The boat coasted in fourth. He was larger than life. They become friends and Johnson told my father about the Miami-Nassau race, which my father became really interested in. Kramer was hot tempered, the argument went; had he been sufficiently enraged by the USA Racing Team misfire to kill Aronow, he would have done so in 1985, whereas Kramer reportedly remained respectful towards Aronow until the end. Check Death Reason HOw Old She Was? Brown: He was also the best boat salesman in the history of the world. (ABOVE) HES GOT THE LOOK: Aronow looked the part. He has three childrenMichael, David, and Claudiawith Shirley Goldin, his first wife. He came to my basketball games, my football games, he was always around.. We'd race to Nassau and back on the weekends. Some men had told his father that he'd lost it. Aronow had sold USA Racing Teama company that built high-speed catamarans for the U.S. Customs Serviceto Kramer and his father in 1985. Given this unpromising start in life, the seven-ton, 11.9-metre Blue Thunder vessels acquitted themselves well. Members of the Bee Gees were neighbours on both sides. Furthermore, there were witnesses plenty of them, if not always consistent in the details they shared with police. [Aronow was extremely competitive in most aspects of his life, perhaps even to a fault.]. Sign up to BOAT International email newsletters to get the latest superyacht news, business analysis, exclusive event invitations, and more. Performance boats attract a lot of characters. Six foot three, real good looking, lots of swagger. She used to be married to Martin Kimmel, a real estate developer. His earliest memory was riding home in the richly leathered back seat of his father's limosine, listening to the strangely anxious voices of his parents talking in the front of the car. The contessa suddenly mashed her brakes and brought the car to a halt at the side of the road, its tires only inches away from a sheer drop into a dark valley. Peters recalled a sound like firecrackers a pop pop pop, eerie and ominous. Some people badmouth him, He did this, he robbed that. Well, thats shame on you. He wears khaki slacks to work-tieless and sockless-as he cuts six-figure boat deals with a young Italian count one minute, and talks rpm's with a greasy race mechanic the next. Aronow: My father broke up more marriages than anybody. The EMS [paramedics] showed up and pulled him out. Aronow doesn't care if all these retired furniture makers and machine tool executives are little more than middle-aged adolescents flaunting their masculinity on a Sunday afternoon -- tooling around the docks of some Intracoastal bar like Shooters, feeling terribly macho-nautical doing 30 knots in a $125,000 Cigarette Aronow built to run all day at 60 knots in hull- hammering six foot seas. [On the afternoon of February 3, 1987, a man claiming to be Jerry Jacoby walked into Aronows Thunderboat Row office exhibiting strange behavior; inquiring about a 60-foot boat and alluding to a mysterious man that he worked forand who he would kill for if need be. They had two sons, Gavin and Wylie. [Aronow famously kept company with people from all walks of life. At his funeral, [eye surgeon and powerboat racer] Doc Magoon gave the eulogy, and at one point he said, Don was a mans man. He paused, and then said, And he was a ladies man. Everybody looked around the room at all of the known mistresses that were sitting there., Michael Aronow My father broke up more marriages than anybody. A violent criminal named Bobby Young was fingered as the hitman, and his employeraccording to the courtswas Ben Kramer. Drug smuggling could be the regions major [largest] industry..

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