2 minute read
Legendary Rocker, Car Enthusiast
On The Lighter Side: Eddie Van Halen: Legendary Rocker, Car Enthusiast
Fast cars and fast tunes go hand in hand --- especially when you’re talking about Van Halen.
On Tuesday, October 6, Eddie Van Halen lost his ba le with throat cancer and passed away. He was 65 years old.
He’s well known and well-respected as one of the greatest guitar players of all me, but he was one of us, too. Eddie Van Halen was a car enthusiast of the highest order.
The best-known car in his collec on was his Lamborghini Miura. As he grew in popularity through the 1980s, Van Halen reportedly owned a string of Lamborghinis. It’s safe to assume that the Miura was his favorite, considering it was the one he kept around the longest.
The reason we know the Miura so well is that it once served as a backup singer alongside original Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony. Continued on Page 15
Continued from Page 14 You can hear its engine revving during the “Runnin’ a li le bit hot tonight...” por on of Panama.
Legend has it that Eddie backed it up to the doors of the recording studio, and the engineers stuck microphones in the exhaust pipes. The rest is rock & roll history.
He also had an affi nity for Porsches, too. In an interview with Car and Driver, he praised his 911 GT3 RS, saying that it handled be er than any Porsche 911 he’d owned previously.
Van Halen wasn’t afraid to take it on the racetrack and turn in some seriously impressive lap mes. He even had the suspension set up for racing by legendary Porsche tuners BBI Autosport. As it turns out, Eddie Van Halen was mul -talented.
When that Car and Driver ar cle was wri en, he owned the Miura, the 911 GT3 RS, and a pair of Audi R8s --- one a V8, the other a V10. He also appreciated older American cars, too.
He’s owned a 1947 Dodge fl atbed truck, and at one point, he owned a pair of Chevy Nomad wagons that even had their own customized, matching guitars. As far as we know, neither one of those guitars ever replaced the legendary Frankenstrat.
Back in the early ‘90s, Van Halen partnered with Sport Truck magazine and legendary customized Boyd Coddington to build the coolest street truck of all me, the Van Hauler. The red GMT400 pickup featured black and white stripes that matched (arguably) the most famous guitar of all me.
In fact, two trucks were built, with Eddie keeping one and the other being given away. Countless more were built when Testors issued a 1:24 scale replica of the truck. According to Van Halen News Desk, Eddie kept the more subduedlooking one.
Eddie Van Halen owned some truly great cars, and he leaves a lasting legacy for enthusiasts like us. Van Halen has been the unoffi cial soundtrack of cruising, burnouts, and stoplight drags for over four decades, and we don’t see that stopping any me soon. And the cradle will rock.
