Rockers And Rods: A Combination As Natural As A Burger And Fries

rocker06Elvis Presley had a fascination with Cadillacs, and was even known to give a few away to family and friends – and even a complete stranger at times. While he might not have been the first musician who had a fascination with the automobile, there have been hordes of musicians since that have not only fallen in love with cars, but they’ve created quite a collection for themselves.

Some famous songs that we can’t ever seem to get enough of, include “Hot Rod Lincoln“, made a bit more popular by Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen in 1972; and of course we’ve all been in love with the Beach Boys’ hit “409“, with the “four-speed dual-quad posi-traction”. The year 1978 brought us the hit “Driver’s Seat” by Sniff-n-the Tears, a song about doing “a little drivin’ on a Saturday night”, a very cool cruising tune.

Some musicians have amassed a collection from various manufacturers, and others seem to focus on the musclecars. Today, we’re going to look at a few rockers who collect hot rods and musclecars, and open up the comments section below for you to tell us about some that we didn’t discuss. So check out those that we did cover, below, and then tell us about your favorite musician or car.

rocker07

MTV Brings Music and Cars Together

We got a glimpse of hot rods and music when that famous red 1933 Ford Coupe buzzed across the screen in the 1980s when ZZ Top shared the “Eliminator” with us all. From that point, and thanks to MTV, we began to not only hear about rockers and rods, but we got to see them with some of our favorite music videos. ZZ Top’s own Billy Gibbons went on to share more cool cars with us, like “Cadzilla”, and shared his love for cars in his book entitled, “Rock and Roll Gearhead.”

We’ve shared some cool music videos featuring very cool musclecars and hot rods, and even shared some cars that belong to famous musicians, like Kid Rock’s car collection, and Nikki Sixx’s Chevelle SS that went up for sale last year. We showed you a collection of muscle cars in a Train video, and a British band, Nero, featuring a Pantera in their music video. There are so many others that it’s too hard to list them all, and we will always want more.

rocker01So when we came across MSN Auto’s article on Rockin’ Garages, it brought back the memories of the cars and rockers mentioned above. It features more than just muscle cars for some of the musicians, but we’re going to skip over the boring cars and talk about the muscle cars and hot rods.

First on the list is Michael Anthony, former bassist for Van Halen, who’s now rockin’ with another former Van Halen member, Sammy Hagar, in Chickenfoot. One of his favorite rides is his ’33 Ford Roadster, but his collection also includes a ’69 Shelby GT500 and a very cool ’57 Chevy. He said in the article that he attends a few car shows, and that he does one of our favorite things with his cars: he drives them!

Brad Whitford, lead guitarist for Aerosmith, started to buy better guitars and nicer cars, the article says, of Aerosmith’s hitting the big time. His collection includes an ’07 Saleen Boss 302 and a very clean 1967 Chevelle SS. He also enjoys some of the European cars, but his American muscle is pretty cool, too.

Brad Whitford, lead guitarist for Aerosmith, drives a very clean '67 Chevelle SS; Keith Urban wrote a song inspired by his '69 Mustang Mach 1 gift from wife Nicole Kidman; Jimmy Vaughan is a Texas bluesman who loves heavy metal.

When it comes to variety, Keith Urban likes to cruise with wife Nicole Kidman in their ’56 Lincoln Mark II, but also enjoys a stable of other cool rides. His first royalty check helped him to get an Impala SS. Among his other rides, a very cool 1969 Mustang from his wife that inspired a song about their first dates and early relationship.

Texas bluesman Jimmy Vaughan, older brother to the late Stevie Ray Vaughan, has a bit of an affliction for heavy metal on four wheels. Some of his cars include a dropped and shaved Chevy Fleetline, a chopped and slammed ’61 Cadillac hardtop with a blown big-block and a ’54 Ford hardtop, all of which make some noise and seem to be build for speed. His ’61 Caddy sports a 5-speed trans and huge slicks to put that Latham-blown BBC power to the ground.

rocker05Last, but not least, on our list is none other than the man behind the “Xtreme Lee” remake of the famous Dukes of Hazzard car, Kenny Wayne Shepherd. One thing that can be said about Shepherd is that he’s definitely a Mopar maniac. You can find Mopars in his videos as well as his driveway, and that’s pretty cool to us. His 1964 Dodge 330 presented at PRI in 2010 is powered by a modern HEMI mill, and some of his other cars include a supercharged 2010 Dodge Challenger SRT8, a 1970 Plymouth Duster with  475 horse 406 cubic inch mill, among others. When asked, “Why Mopar?”, he responded with, “Older Chrysler products look fast standing still.” We tend to agree.

Of course, there are so many cars, musicians and stories to tell, but these are just a scratch on the surface of Rockers and Rods. We could go on and on, but someone has to stop and make dinner, so we’ll cut it off here. What are some of your favorite cars owned by musicians?

About the author

Michael Harding

Michael is a Power Automedia contributor and automotive enthusiast who doesn’t discriminate. Although Mopar is in his blood, he loves any car that looks great and drives even faster.
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