President Lyndon B. Johnson's 1965 Glastron V-204 Gulfstream |
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Not many folks
know that LBJ loved boats. Most know he loved his Lincoln cars, but
he loved his boats too. While he always kept some sort of small
cruiser, Lyndon like to be out driving runabouts, and the one he
kept through nearly his entire presidency was this 1965 Glastron
V-204 Gulfstream with a 409 engine.
Many former presidents had boats too,
but the boats seem to be more elusive and harder to track down. Most
of the presidents’ cars had special modifications that made them
unmistakable, but their boats were usually used for recreation and
had no difference from another boat of the same year and model.
Unless the boat was kept track of for its entire life, it could be
sitting in a driveway or junk yard and no one would be able to tell
what it was.
No fewer than 8
photographers jockey for position to get a shot of LBJ in his new
Glastron on Novermber 24, 1965. Standing with his hands in his pockets is Bill Moyers.
Next to LBJ, seated in the boat, is Ladybird Johnson (more visible
in photo above from the same day). Two secret
service agents are in tan jackets at the left and the one kneeling
at the dock has his gun exposed at the bottom of his back.
On July 16, 1961 Vice President Lyndon Johnson entertained Pakistani visitors on his 1961 Glastron Crestflite
Both of these pictures are from the LBJ library and were dated the same day, July 16, 1961. These are 2 different Glastrons? At the same time LBJ bought a 26
foot Adventura, another boat line owned by Bill Gaston and Bob
Hammond, Glastron’s founder. The LBJ library
http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu
has hundreds of photos and many film segments of LBJ in his
Glastrons. Some time later the Adventura cruiser and at least
one of these Glastrons were lost in a flood on the Llano River where
they were kept. (So much for tracking those down. At least their
history is known).
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