Car songs have been around for many decades and became engrained in the car culture over that extended time frame. They are songs about the open road and a sense of adventure mixed with freedom in most cases.
We at MyStarCollectorCar have dabbled with the car song concept a few times over the past 16 years because we believe they are very worthy of our attention.
Consequently, we are revisiting the car tune angle and this time we will apply five automotive matches with car songs.
Jim Sutherland
The first car song on our list is ‘Driver’s Seat’, an aptly named 1979 tune by one hit wonder Sniff ‘n’ the Tears. ‘Driver’s Seat’ was a fast-paced song that got even faster as it cruised into a blazing velocity over the radio back in ’79.
There were two things a driver needed to keep pace with ‘Driver’s Seat’: a great lawyer and a 1979 Porsche Carrera 911 Turbo (930). There were no exceptional domestic sports cars during the sunset of the Me Decade, but Germany had the Porsche Carrera 911 Turbo (930), and it was fast, furious and nimble enough to bury the competition in speed and agility. This German road rocket hit 60 mph in only 4.9 seconds, topped out at roughly 150 mph, and buried the competition in North America in 1979.
We at MyStarCollectorCar lean heavily toward domestic cars, but we had to choose the 1979 Porsche 911 Turbo because nothing else seemed suitable for ‘Driver’s Seat’.
The second song on our list is ‘Ol’ 55’, written and performed by Tom Waits, but made popular by the Eagles in 1974. Our first impression leaned toward the famous 1955 Chevy, but Waits wrote about a 1955 Buick Roadmaster in the song because he owned a ’55 Buick–not a Chevy.
The song described a leisurely early morning pace on a freeway; therefore a 1955 Buick Roadmaster would be a good fit in the lyrics for a guy that owned one. So, Buick Roadmaster it is for ‘Ol’ ’55’.
The third song on our list is the iconic ‘(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66’, perhaps one of the most famous car tunes ever played over a radio. ‘Route 66’ is also one of the oldest because it debuted in 1946 when Nat King Cole and his band released it as a single, arguably the most famous version, even though many artists covered it over the decades.
Route 66 was a major US road back in 1946 and covered most of the country as a two-lane road from LA to the Midwest, or vice versa, depending upon travel direction. The pace was slower almost 80 years ago, so we believe a perfect car for the song would be a 1946 Lincoln Continental to smooth out the bumps on a long Route 66 road trip. A 1946 Lincoln Continental was a big and beautiful luxury liner with a good radio sound to hear ‘Route 66’ while on the actual highway.
The fourth addition to our list is the frantic ‘Radar Love’, a hormonally-driven car song that chronicles a young male driver’s wild ride to hook up with a love interest. The only question is what car would get him there quickly in 1974?
Our answer is the ’74 Firebird Trans Am Super Duty-455 because it still had plenty of horses under its hood during an automotive era when brute force power was headed toward a hasty exit in domestic cars. A ’74 SD-455 was a limited-edition Poncho with an entire stable of angry ponies to gallop down the road, so it would be a perfect car for a lovestruck young car guy to get to his date’s place in a big hurry.
The fifth and final car song on our MyStarCollectorCar is ‘Life is a Highway’–the 1991 Tom Cochrane version and not the 2006 Rascal Flatts cover. The main reason? 1991 is the first year for the Dodge Viper so it would be the perfect match with Cochrane’s lively ode to the open road.
The official video for the original Cochrane version of ‘Life is a Highway’ used a 1965 Chevy Impala convertible but a 1991 car song would have been better served by a ’91 Viper in our opinion here at MyStarCollectorCar.
We like our choices but your opinion about the ideal car for a driving song may differ.
Jim Sutherland
BY: Jim Sutherland
Jim Sutherland is a veteran automotive writer whose work has been published by many major print and online publications. The list includes Calgary Herald, The Truth About Cars, Red Deer Advocate, RPM Magazine, Edmonton Journal, Montreal Gazette, Windsor Star, Vancouver Province, and Post Media Wheels Section.
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