Tuned to perfection
Cars are mechanical, functional objects, but as we all know they can also create strong emotions.
Inevitably, they have therefore been mentioned frequently in what might broadly be described as popular songs.
From the many available examples, here’s our choice of 30, listed in alphabetical order of the featured car. If your favourite hasn’t made it, we can only apologise.
House rules: we’ve restricted ourselves to cars which were sold in the 20th century, and are identifiable as specific models either from the lyrics or from supporting information.
1. AC Cobra
In Hey Little Cobra, a 1963 hit by the Rip Chords, the singer talks of towing his Cobra to a race meeting with his Cadillac.
As often happens in songs, the choice of support vehicle is not coincidental: ‘Cadillac’ usefully rhymes with ‘track’.
The opposition consists mainly of Chevrolet Corvette Stingrays and Jaguar E-types, the latter referred to here as XK-Es because that’s how they were known in the US.
The chorus includes the line, ‘Hey little Cobra, don’t you know you’re gonna shut ’em down,’ which proves to be true.
The singer is so far ahead on the last lap that he is able to coast to the finish line in neutral and still win.
2. Austin Seven
The baby Austin was so successful that it was only a matter of time before a British songwriter used it as a subject.
The songwriter in question was Clarkson Rose, who wrote and recorded the pretty witty ditty My Little Austin Seven in 1928.
The accompaniment was provided on that occasion by a band. Four years later, Norman Long recorded a more up-tempo version, backed only by a piano.
The track on the B side of Long’s record is Monday Morning, which also contains a reference to an Austin Seven.
3. Cadillac Series 62
In his early rock and roll hit Maybellene, Chuck Berry sings about chasing after the object of his affections in a Ford V8.
Maybellene is driving what Berry describes as a Cadillac Coupe de Ville. This could mean several things, but the fact that the song was recorded in 1955 limits the possibilities.
Helpfully, Berry provides further evidence by saying that the Caddy reaches 104mph. If this is accurate, he must be talking about, at the earliest, a 1953 Coupe de Ville version (pictured) of the fourth-generation Series 62, since it’s unlikely that any of its predecessors would go that fast.
Maybellene was a goldmine for Berry, not because of his own success with it, but also because it was covered many times by other artists, some of whom used the alternatively-spelled title Maybelline.
4. Cadillac Seville
For those of you who might be unaware of it, 25 Lighters is a 1998 track by DJ DMD, featuring Lil’ Keke and Fat Pat.
I Gotsta Get Paid, released 14 years later by ZZ Top, is musically quite different, but has almost exactly the same lyrics (though, given the contrasting natures of rock and hip-hop, ZZ Top cut most of them).
Both songs contain a fleeting mention of a ‘nine-nine Seville’. Unless this is an obscure piece of slang we haven’t heard of (and yes, we’ve checked), it refers to the second model year of the fifth-generation Cadillac Seville, which was produced from 1998 to 2004.
In 2008, Z-Ro released another track called 25 Lighters, which shares only one line with the two songs mentioned above. There are references to three foreign cars and a truck, but their identities are not revealed, and none of them can possibly be a Cadillac Seville.
5. Chevrolet Corvette
Although it was the shortest-lived Corvette of the 20th century, produced only from the 1963 to 1967 model years, the second-generation model (and the first to use the now famous Stingray name) was a popular choice of car for songwriters.
It had already been mentioned in two very well-known songs by the end of 1963. In Dead Man’s Curve by Jan and Dean (who, as we’ll see, often wrote about cars), the singer has a race in a Stingray through the streets of Los Angeles with a Jaguar XK-E, whose driver crashes, presumably fatally.
In Shut Down by the Beach Boys, which lasts less than two minutes, another Stingray has a race against a Dodge. The result is not reported, but the Chevy is catching up as its driver calls out, ‘Shut it off, shut it off, buddy now I shut you down’.
Much later, in 2001, country star David Ball recorded the moving and thoughtful Riding With Private Malone, which features a ’66 Corvette.
6. Dodge 330
The title character in Jan and Dean’s 1964 song The Little Old Lady From Pasadena is initially described as having ‘a pretty little flowerbed of white gardenias’, but it soon becomes clear that she is interested in more than horticulture.
She turns out to be the owner of a ‘brand-new shiny red super stock Dodge’. This seems at first to be a slightly vague description, but in context it must refer to a Dodge 330 with a 7-litre V8 engine.
Those cars were manufactured only in the 1963 and 1964 model years, and were often used for drag racing.
There’s no suggestion that the little old lady takes part in competition herself, but she drives so quickly on the road that she becomes known as ‘the terror of Colorado Boulevard’.
7. Dodge Dart
I Left My Wallet in El Segundo was a single taken from A Tribe Called Quest’s extremely well-received 1990 debut album, People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm.
The song’s title is also its punchline, so we don’t have to go into the plot in much detail.
Of more interest here is the reference to a 1974 Dodge Dart, which reaches El Segundo on the California coast during an approximately 6000-mile round trip from New York.
1974 was the second last model year for the fourth and final generation of the original Dart, though the name was brought back in 2013.
The official video for the song features a period-correct sedan very similar to the one pictured.
8. Ford Bronco
My Ol’ Bronco is the opening track of Luke Bryan’s seventh album, and describes – with considerable tenderness and nostalgia – his first-generation Ford Bronco.
In the first line, Bryan sings that the vehicle has no doors or windows. This implies that it’s not just any Bronco but a Bronco Roadster, which is problematic.
The album was released in 2015, and elsewhere in the song Bryan tells us that the Bronco is ‘lookin’ good for 42 years young’. That would make it a 1973 model, but the Roadster was produced only from 1966 to 1968.
Possible explanations are that the Bronco was a chopped-down conversion, or that Bryan wrote the song five years before the album came out (which is certainly possible), or that he was using artistic licence.
We can fret about this if we choose to, but another option is just to sit back and enjoy the song without worrying about such things.
9. Ford Model 18
Little Deuce Coupe is both the nickname for the 1932 Ford coupé and the title of a Beach Boys song released in 1963.
The lyrics of the song include a reference to a ‘flathead mill’, a V8 engine which Ford used for the first time in the Model 18 (four-cylinder versions of the same car being known as Model B).
The Model 18 is generally accepted as being the inspiration for the song, though the updated version sold in 1933 and 1934 (but still known generically as 1932 Ford) was called Model 40.
Slightly off-topic, Deuce Coupe is the name of a ballet choreographed by Twyla Tharp. Its music consists entirely of songs recorded by the Beach Boys, including Little Deuce Coupe.
10. Ford Model A
Hot Road Race, released in 1950 by Arkie Shibley and His Mountain Dew Boys, tells a story which would later become familiar in American songs, including the previously mentioned Dead Man’s Curve.
The singer has a Model A (presumably the version sold from 1928 to 1931 rather than the one introduced in 1903) which has been uprated with four-barrel carburettors and overdrive. Although he has two passengers – his wife and brother – he becomes involved in a race with a Mercury, which he wins.
Five years later, Charlie (or Charley) Ryan released an answer song called Hot Rod Lincoln. The car is still a Model A, but it has been fitted with one of two possible Lincoln V12 engines. It races against a Cadillac, whose driver pulls over just before the Ford is stopped by the police.
Ryan re-recorded the song in 1960. It was covered in later years by many other artists, including Johnny Bond, who reduced the cylinder count to eight.
11. Ford Model T
T-bucket and Bucket T are both names for a Model T with cut-down bodywork and extensive modifications, usually including a large and often exposed V8 engine.
Cars of this type were celebrated in Jan and Dean’s April 1964 single Bucket T. This was essentially a rewrite – with different lyrics and slightly more complex harmony – of Jennie Lee, released six years earlier by Jan (yes, the same Jan) and Arnie.
Ronny and the Daytonas came out with a version in November 1964. Another cover was released two years later by The Who.
The recordings are very similar, though each band made its own choice of what to play in the instrumental solos, and the Ronny and the Daytonas one is pitched a semitone higher than the others.
12. Ford Mustang
The first-generation version of Ford’s pony car had been on sale for little more than a year when the most famous song associated with it was released.
Mustang Sally, written and first recorded in 1965 by ‘Sir’ Mack Rice, is actually less about the car itself than the fictional woman named after it.
The singer refers to the car as ‘brand-new’, which was almost inevitable considering how recently it had been launched.
This was nearly but not quite still the case when Mustang Sally was covered in 1966 by Wilson Pickett. In the same year, John Lee Hooker took the story a step further with his own song, Mustang Sally and GTO, in which Sally appears to have bought a Pontiac.
13. Ford Thunderbird (first generation)
As far as we know, Bob Seger has never made a Ford Thunderbird, but he has written and recorded a song about doing so.
Makin’ Thunderbirds was released as a track on Seger’s 1982 album The Distance, but the lyrics explicitly state that it is set in 1955.
This was the first model year of the Thunderbird, which at the time was a two-seater. All future T-birds had four seats, except those in the final generation sold from 2002 to 2005.
Seger has Ford connections unrelated to the song. He was born in the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, and his father worked for Ford, though not on the production line.
14. Ford Thunderbird (third generation)
Fun Fun Fun refers to the enjoyment (of an unspecified nature) which the unnamed heroine, and possibly the singer, will experience when her father withdraws permission to drive his Thunderbird.
There is no clue in the lyrics about when this particular Thunderbird was built. However, it has emerged that the song was based on a true story about the owner of a radio station in Salt Lake City, Utah, who loaned his Thunderbird to his daughter, thinking she was going to drive it to the library.
In fact, she drove it to a burger joint instead, which didn’t please Pops one bit. The Beach Boys happened to be in his radio station the following day, heard the story and made a song out of it.
That Thunderbird is known to have been a ’63, built in the last model year of the third generation, so the mystery is solved.
15. Holden FJ
Fester Fanatics was a Sydney-based band described, rather primly, on the Australian Metal Guide website as having ‘gained notoriety for their slapdash approach to thrash metal mayhem’.
The band’s final album, released in 1996, was The Great Aussie Demo, whose first track was titled FJ Holden.
This is a reference to the Holden FJ, which had gone out of production a full 40 years earlier.
After the 48-215, the FJ was the second car manufactured by and branded as a Holden. That company, which was discontinued by owner General Motors in 2020, had started out as a saddlery in the mid 19th century, and built car bodies before moving into the manufacture of complete vehicles in 1948.
16. Infiniti Q45
If I Ruled the World (Imagine That) was the first big hit for Nas, whose rap was interspersed with sections sung by Lauren Hill.
Several cars are mentioned, including ‘purple M3s’ and ‘Benz stretches’, but the only one which can be identified precisely is the Infiniti Q45.
Nas twisted its name slightly to Q45 Infinit’. Rhyming is a very important feature of rap, and the change was made to suit ‘sky’s the limit’ at the end of the previous line.
There were three generations of Q45, but the song was released in June 1996, before production of the second began. The car referred to here can therefore only be the original model.
17. Jaguar E-type
As mentioned earlier, an E-type – or an XK-E, as it was known in the US and referred to in the song – featured alongside a Corvette in Dead Man’s Curve by Jan and Dean.
The Jaguar driver comes off worse in the race, crashing at a notorious bend in Los Angeles. No details are given, but the incident is described as ‘a horrible sight’.
The song was released in 1964, so the car must be a Series 1 with the XK straight-six engine.
There is no indication of whether it was a coupé or a convertible, but given that the song is set in California it seems reasonable to assume that it was the latter.
18. Jeep Cherokee
In The Jeep Song by The Dresden Dolls, Amanda Palmer sings of a former boyfriend who she describes as ‘a bully and a clown’.
Unfortunately, she is reminded of him (‘my broken heart still skips a beat’) every time she sees a Jeep Cherokee of the type he owned.
Her comment on this, which we have edited slightly in the interest of seemliness, is, ‘I guess it’s just my stupid luck/That all of Boston drives the same black truck’.
The Jeep Song was released in September 2003, when the third-generation Cherokee was in production, but Palmer specifically refers to a 1996 model, which was part of the generation before that.
19. Jeepster
In one of the most celebrated songs released by T. Rex, Marc Bolan describes himself as a Jeepster five times and his girlfriend as a Jaguar once, suggesting significant differences in their characters.
The motoring theme disappears in the last two lines, when Bolan describes himself as a vampire instead.
Neither car is specified, and the Jaguar in particular can’t be pinned down. The Jeepster might possibly be the Willys-Overland model of that name manufactured from 1948 to 1950, but that seems unlikely for a 1971 song.
It’s more plausible that Bolan was referring to the Jeepster Commando, which was launched in 1966. Ironically, at about the time Jeepster hit the airwaves, the car’s name was shortened to Jeep Commando.
20. Mini Super
Michael Flanders and Donald Swann followed up their very successful 1950s revue At the Drop of a Hat with a new show, At the Drop of Another Hat, in 1963.
This included Sounding Brass, a song in which Flanders and Swann try to outdo each other by boasting about their achievements and possessions. At one point, Swann says, ‘I’ve just bought a Mini Super,’ to which Flanders replies, ‘Oh yes, I’ve got one in my boot’.
Mini Super is not a widely familiar name today, but it would have been in 1963. It refers to the Austin Seven Super and Morris Mini-Minor Super, which were launched in 1961, and looked very similar to the equivalent high-performance Cooper models (pictured), but retained the standard model’s engine, gearbox and brakes.
They became known as Austin Super Seven and Morris Super Mini early in 1962, and were discontinued before the end of that year. The Mini Super De Luxe, which survived far longer, is not quite the same thing.
21. Mitsubishi Colt
Mitsubishi Colt is a beat poem by Tim Minchin, who recites it while brilliantly improvising an accompaniment on the piano.
It describes a possibly fictional encounter with an extremely rich young stockbroker, who insists that Minchin is, in a philosophical sense, wealthier than himself because he is an artist.
Minchin becomes increasingly angry, and finally explodes when the stockbroker tells him, ‘I reckon that one day you could play the piano as good as Elton John’.
The relevance of a small Japanese hatchback to all this is not made clear until the final line, in which Minchin bitterly refers to himself as ‘a wealthy, wealthy man in a 1981 Mitsubishi Colt’.
22. Morris Minor
While ordinary people with proper jobs can enjoy I Like Driving in my Car, the 1982 hit by Madness, as a novelty song and then get on with their lives, it causes despair and anguish among motoring researchers.
The lyrics make it clear that the car is a Morris, it was built in 1959 and it was previously owned by the GPO, the predecessor of today’s Post Office.
This absolutely nails the car down to being a Series 3 Morris Minor, with the recently enlarged 948cc BMC A-series engine. Unfortunately, it also means that it probably isn’t a car at all, but a van.
Further confusion arises from the fact that the vehicle is said to have been manufactured in a factory by the Tyne. There are two rivers of that name in the UK, and the Minor wasn’t built within 100 miles of either of them, but we can dismiss the issue by suggesting that ‘Tyne’ was mentioned simply because it rhymes with ‘fifty-nine’.
23. Nash Rambler
One of several songs titled Beep Beep was recorded by The Playmates in 1958, and describes a race between an unspecified Cadillac and a Nash Rambler.
As the song increases in tempo and modulates into higher keys, the speed of the cars rises, eventually reaching an improbable 120mph, at which point we discover that the Rambler driver is stuck in second gear.
There were two generations of Nash Rambler, and it’s tempting to think that the one in the song is the earlier model (pictured), which was smaller than its successor and had a more amusingly curvy body. However, the second was in production when the song was released, and it would still have been dwarfed by a contemporary Cadillac.
There is speculation that Beep Beep was largely responsible for a big rise in Rambler sales in 1958 (by which time the Nash name had been dropped), but this could have been a coincidence.
24. Oldsmobile 88
The Oldsmobile 88 was built across 10 generations for half a century.
In its original form, as launched in the 1949 model year, it was powered by a 5-litre flathead V8 engine known as the Rocket, which led to the car being nicknamed Rocket 88.
This was already a well-known term by 1951, when Rocket 88, credited to Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats, was released.
It’s often described as the first rock ‘n’ roll song, but musical definitions are rarely that simple, and the claim has been disputed.
25. Pontiac Firebird Trans Am
455 SD, written by American Deniz Tek when he was a member of the Australian band Radio Birdman, is a rare example of a song named after an engine.
It refers to a high-performance version of Pontiac’s 7.5-litre V8, also known as SD-455 or Super Duty 455.
Tek’s lyrics explicitly state that it’s fitted to a 1971 Firebird Trans Am. In fact, it wasn’t fitted to anything before 1973, but there’s no reason why it couldn’t have been used as a replacement for the original unit in a ’71 model at some point.
455 SD was one of the tracks on Radio Birdman’s Living Eyes album, released in 1981, and on the 1995 remix. Swedish band The Hellacopters covered it on the 1998 EP Disappointment Blues.
26. Pontiac GTO
GTO was both the debut single of Ronny and the Daytonas and the title track of the band’s first album, released in 1964.
It could refer to either a Ferrari or the recently released Pontiac GTO. Neither manufacturer is specified in the lyrics, but there’s enough evidence to convince anyone who really needs convincing that the song is about the Pontiac.
Nearly all of it appears in the second line, which goes, ‘three deuces [three twin-barrel carburettors], a four-speed and a 389 [the capacity of the engine in cubic inches]’ which matches the car’s specification exactly.
There’s also a reference to the GTO running on ‘a quarter-mile’ or drag strip, which isn’t the natural home of a Ferrari. To put the matter beyond all doubt, the car is described at one point as a ‘Pon-Pon’, and who would ever call a Ferrari something like that?
27. Porsche 924
You might miss it if you’re not paying attention, but a black Porsche 924 is mentioned right at the start of Night Drive (Thru-Babylon) by Model 500.
The single was released in 1985, by which time the 924 was old news. It had been launched nine years before, and would remain in production for only another three.
Night Drive, by contrast, was new, even futuristic. Juan Atkins, who used the alias Model 500 several times, has been described as ‘the original pioneer of Detroit techno’, and from this track alone it’s easy to see why.
Atkins has also been known as Infiniti, though, unlike Nas, he doesn’t appear to have mentioned a car of that name in a song.
28. Studebaker Speedster
Near the end of the 1972 Roxy Music single Virginia Plain, Bryan Ferry sings about ‘some place near the desert strand where my Studebaker takes me’.
Although there are no further clues about the car in the lyrics, it’s well known that the second car Ferry owned was a Studebaker, which replaced a ‘lovely’ Vauxhall Velox.
According to some reports, the Studebaker was a Champion, but contemporary photos of Ferry standing beside the car show very clearly that it was in fact a Speedster, which was produced only in the 1955 model year.
The same photos also suggest that it wasn’t entirely original. The Speedster’s front bumper usually included sections containing foglights, which were not present on Ferry’s car.
29. Volkswagen Karmann Ghia
The Karmann Ghia, a beautiful sports car based on the considerably less beautiful VW Beetle, was discontinued in 1975, but it has continued to inspire musicians well into the 21st century.
For example, Cream Green Karmann Ghia is the second track on the album Twist the Truth, released by The Humbugs in 2006. Karmann Ghia, by Anchor and Bear, came out as recently as November 2022, as one of the songs on No More Nights on the Roof.
Another Karmann Ghia is part of the 2018 Capyac album Who Is Donny Flamingo?, but this doesn’t quite count because it’s an instrumental track rather than a song.
There are no clues about whether any of the bands was referring to the original car or the larger Type 34 version sold from 1961 to 1969, but we strongly suspect they meant the former.
30. Volkswagen Microbus
Possibly the oddest song mentioned here – and therefore the most appealing, if you like that sort of thing – is Hippopotamus by Sparks.
At the beginning, the singer (Russell Mael) is surprised to find the animal of the title in his pool.
He later finds that the pool also contains other objects which rhyme, more or less, with hippopotamus, including a book by Anonymous, a painting by Hieronymous (Bosch), a woman with an abacus and – the reason we mention all this – a 1958 Volkswagen Microbus.
The Microbus was a multi-passenger version of the VW Type 2, which was technically, though not visually, similar to the Beetle, and was also available as a pick-up and a panel van.
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