STAR CAR TUNES: “RUSTY OLD AMERICAN DREAM” DAVID WILCOX-THE WORLD’S BEST OLD CAR SONG

We all know that cars are inanimate objects-the logic is relentless. But it doesn’t stop us from assigning human traits to these masses of steel-especially the old cars. . If this song doesn’t make you want to buy the first forlorn looking old hulk from the 50s then call a doctor-you’re missing a heart “I will give you the rest of my lifetime, just don’t let me die here alone”.

Old car people are particularly susceptible to assigning personalities to their cars-just ask anybody who owns a 58 Rambler wagon- they all see a 4 wheeled person in that oddly styled AMC classic that nobody wanted after 1965.

Many of us have been there.

We see a project car with a future where the real world sees a complete mess with 4 flat tires and a date with destiny as a giant cube. We see the old classic like David Wilcox did when it was new “I rolled off the line, In Detroit back in 1958, Spent three days in the showroom, That’s all I had to wait”.

But in reality the car is more like this:

“I’m a tail-fin road locomotive, From the days of cheap gas, And I’m for sale by the side of the road going nowhere, A rusty old American dream”. 

And the car in Rusty Old American Dream (like too many old cars- past and present) is running out of time: “And this year’s state inspection, I just barely passed, Won’t you drive me ‘cross the country, boy, This year could be my last”. Those are powerful words for anybody who’s dragged a 40, 50 or 60 year old Detroit classic out of an automotive hospice. A soul crushing song because of a car crushing future...it makes you want to go out and save every 40 year old car on earth.

Most car songs are simply about power-this song is simply powerful and in its own way it defines what mystarcollectorcar is all about- “a rusty old American dream, still runnin’”-1985 Hyundais need not apply