Newman got into racing as a tax-friendly escapade. His passion grew soon after. He was one of three Hollywood A-listers to not only make classic race flicks but to get hooked by the sport. Steve McQueen (Le Mans) and James Garner (Grand Prix) were the other two. Newman brought celluloid and circuit crashing together in Winning. As both careers begin to close, he can remember the races more than the movies.
"That says I have a fairly good memory for racing and no memory at all for films," he says as I suggest maybe he made the wrong career choice. He is modest in response. "I would never have been in the first echelon of racers. I'm actually surprised that I've done as well as I have."
Newman's first brush with cars came as a teenager. The first steering wheel he got hold of was that of a 1937 Packard, but the car he learned to drive in was a Studebaker Commander from the same year.
"I go back a bit, you see," he jokes. "We got our licences when we were 16. You had to show them that you could drive in a straight line for four hundred feet without hitting anything. It was pretty loose. It's not much better now. It really isn't. Those training courses they have for high school kids (in the US) are shameful."
Newman has had a variety of cars, from a 1929 Model A Ford, right though to a pair of Toyota Priuses that he and his actress wife Joanne Woodward have at homes in and around New York. Newman likes the Prius. "I think they are terrific cars. I get about 50 miles to the gallon depending on how hard you push, but really you have to push them hard to not get good gas mileage," he says.
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