Famous Rock and Roll Celebrity Cars of the 1960s
If you were around in the wild 1960s, you remember that it was an age filled with freedom, rebellion and protest. Young people made certain that the conservative 1950s were something of the past while fighting the war in Vietnam, and standing up to “the Establishment.” Young people were not afraid to make their voices heard and stubbornly refused to accept old-fashioned customs, laws and rules.
Here at Collision Works Of Wichita West in Wichita, KS, we love fun blogs that take us back to a different time, and this one is all about celebrity vehicles owned by two rock stars from the sixties.
Rock music became extremely popular in the 1960s, which meant that rock stars could afford to collect cars without the price making it prohibitive. During this period, guitar legend Eric Clapton had a custom made Ferrari that turned heads; Robert Plant, the lead singer for Led Zeppelin fame, had his beloved 1965 Aston Martin, and Jimi Hendrix owned a 1968 Corvette and drove it above the speed limit most of the time.
There are three vehicles in particular from the sixties that really stand out, primarily because of their colorful custom paint jobs. In 1968, rock princess Janis Joplin purchased a Porsche 356C and hired one of her creative stagehands to paint to it in a psychedelic theme that included butterflies, birds, dragons, mushrooms, and landscapes that made it unique and a moving piece of art.
After Joplin passed away in 1970, her siblings shared the ownership of the vehicle. After a while, the custom paint job started flaking off, so Joplin's brother and sister repainted it in a rather boring gray. A short time later, the family hired several San Francisco artists to restore the one-of-a-kind paint job, and back in 1995, the Porsche was loaned to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame located in Cleveland, Ohio.
In 2015, it was put up for auction and, according to money.cnn.com, it went for $1.15 million at Sotheby’s in The Big Apple to a man from Michigan, with the proceeds going to charities in Janis’s name.
Another well-known celebrity car from the 1960s was a Rolls Royce Phantom V owned by the late John Lennon. When he purchased it, it was originally painted all black except for the radiator and had every possible extra that Rolls Royce ever offered.
The bells and whistles on this Rolls Royce Phantom V were amazing. First, there was refrigerated storage are in the trunk for keeping beverages cold. There was also a fully stocked cocktail cabinet, two portable televisions and tinted windows throughout.
About six months after Lennon bought the car, he wanted a lot of new alterations done. The backseat was designed to fold out like a bed, an over-the-top music system that played records and reel-to-reel tapes while the vehicle was in motion, and a horn was that played the Marlene Dietrich song, "Lili Marlene."
The Rolls Royce Phantom V's body was painted yellow with some cool designs that were painted by custom artist Steve Weaver, consisting of flowers with a series of elegant swirls in many colors, and including Lennon’s astrological sign (he was a Libra).
The Rolls Royce Phantom V naturally got bad reviews from the establishment, much to his glee. His multi-colored luxury car was replaced by an all-white Phantom V as Lennon and the Beatles as they entered their White Album days.
The original psychedelic Rolls was shipped to NYC, so that Lennon could drive it through Central Park, but primarily loaned it out to his rocking friends or kept it in storage. In 1977, the vehicle was donated to the Cooper-Hewitt Museum at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC, and five years after Lennon’s death in 1980, the museum auctioned it off through the well-known Sotheby’s. It was bought by Canadian businessman Jim Pattison for $2,299,000 and is now displayed at the Royal BC Museum in Canada.
Collision Works Of Wichita West in Wichita, KS 67205
Sources: Autobody News and Rolling Stone
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