Not Exactly Hard, Sweet, and Sticky: Sammy Hagar's First Rock Star Car Purchase
I ended up with a copy of Sammy Hagar’s memoir as reading material for my last air-travel adventure, and found it quite entertaining (in spite of the tedious anti-David Lee Roth/Van Halen brothers diatribes). His tales of being the son of Fontana’s town drunk are worth reading, but the only real shocker came when Hagar describes the car he bought in 1973 with the first real money advanced to Montrose. You’ll never guess what type of vehicle the Red Rocker bought with his first rockstar-grade paycheck!
That’s right, a Citroën 2CV! Perhaps this car was the real inspiration for “I Can’t Drive 55” (“I Can Only Drive 55 Downhill” didn’t have quite the same ring to it). In his words: “…and I bought a car. Not just any car, of course, but a Citroën Deux Chaveux, the most uncool car on the planet— a French car that looks like a sardine can. I thought it had class.” For what it’s worth, his next car purchase was a right-hand-drive Ferrari 330GT 2+2.
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Hagerty and The Truth About Cars.
More by Murilee Martin
Comments
Join the conversation
We'll go out drivin' in my 6.6 Bypass the city Head straight for the sticks
I bought this album shortly after I got out of the air force in the fall of 1973. Along with it I bought Canned Heat's "One More River To Cross" LP. I didn't keep the Montrose LP for too long, as it got old real quick to me. I still have the Canned Heat LP, though, and recorded it and put it on CD. Sounds great, too! I've shared this before, but the very first 2CV I ever saw was in San Francisco when I was in the USAF and was dumbfounded by that thing. The next time I saw one was in "American Grafitti" and had a good laugh! Years later, every time we visited the Museum of Transport in suburban St. Louis with my family, they have a nice example of one of these on display. Now I think "How quaint!" obbop: You're looking at another Marty Robbins fan here! El Paso City is one of my favorites.