Car Song

"I cannot hear a The Beach Boys car song without being immediately transported back to the summers of 1962 through 1965... I'm no longer a middle-aged guy driving to the laundry to pick up my shirts; I'm seventeen, and it's a summer night with tantalizing possibilities of adventure and romance hanging semipalpably in the humid air."

— Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs

Are you a musician? Do you own a Cool Car? Do you wish you had a Cool Car? Why not write a song about this car, its parts and how cool it is? Do you have a less than Cool Car? Tell the world about your vehicle's paint job, engine, whatever you want.

Wait, you need more? Okay, why not stick in a story about how the car is cursed, how you like to take your baby around in it (or do other things with them in it) or that time you were arrested for speeding?

Oh, still not enough? Try Drives Like Crazy!

Common cars are T-birds, Cadillacs, hearses, Cadillac hearses, and generic hotrods.

Counterpart trope to Driving Song, which is about the love of driving rather than the car itself. Not to be confused with songs by The Cars. If it's a romantic song about your car, then Cargo Ship may apply. See also Train Song.

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Examples:

Films — Live-Action

• "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
• "The Stanley Steamer" from Summer Holiday.
• "The Ballad of Thunder Road", from the 1958 film of the same name, is about a Hillbilly Moonshiner and his son: Daddy made the whiskey and the son delivered it to his customers, using a ferociously souped-up car.

Music

• "Grey Cortina" by Tom Robinson Band.
• "Low Rider" by War.
• "Hot Rod Race" by Arkie Shibley and his Mountain Dew Boys.
  • "Hot Rod Lincoln" by Charlie Ryan & The Livingston Brothers, an Answer Song.
• "Beep Beep" by The Playmates.
• "Maybelline", Chuck Berry's first single.
• Taken to its ultimate logical conclusion by Queen with "I'm In Love With My Car". The lyrics were inspired by one of their roadies who was a bit obsessive about his Triumph TR4, which is admittedly an extremely Cool Car.
• "Shut Down," "Fun, Fun, Fun," "Little Deuce Coupe" and "409" by The Beach Boys.
  • ...with "Little Honda" as their cool bike song.
• "The Little Old Lady From Pasadena", "Drag City", and "Dead Man's Curve" by Jan and Dean.
  • "Dead Man's Curve" is actually a subversion: if you listen to the lyrics, it describes a street race that ended in a devastating (and, it's implied, deadly for the other driver) crash.
    Well, the last thing I remember, Doc, I started to swerve
    And then I saw the Jag slide into the curve
    I know I'll never forget that horrible sight
    I guess I found out for myself that everyone was right
    You won't come back from Dead Man's Curve
• "Custom Machine" by Bruce and Terry.
• "Cadillac Jack" about a pool player's love affair with his white Cadillac. Things go wrong when he attempts to flirt with a human woman, and Jack ends up riding in the back of a. long. black. Cadillac.
• Subversion: "Little Red Corvette" by Prince isn't about a car - it's a metaphor for a "fast" woman.
  • Another Subversion: "Faster" by George Harrison, which wasn't really associated with cars until sound clips from various Formula One races were added throughout the song.
• "The Scavenger" by Dick Dale & the Del-Tones. Also subverted in "Grudge Match", where he sings about taking his cool car to a drag race — and losing completely.
• "Highway Star" by Deep Purple (from Machine Head)
• "Death Alley Driver" by Rainbow
• Inverted with "Teardrops on my Old Car", a parody of "Teardrops on my Guitar" by Taylor Swift.
• "Look At That Cadillac" by the Stray Cats is the "want a cool car" variety. "Built for Speed" and "Hotrod Gang" are "look at my cool car".
• "Cars" by Gary Numan.
• "Pink Cadillac" by Bruce Springsteen. Cars also play important supporting roles in some other of his songs like "Fire", "Racing in the Streets", "Sherry Darling" or "The River".
• "Trampled Under Foot" by Led Zeppelin sounds like this, but it's really an Intercourse with You song.
  • As is "Shut Up and Drive" by Rihanna.
• This trope was parodied by Prefab Sprout with 'Cars & Girls'
• Van Halen's "Panama" is named after a race car called "Panama Express" that David Lee Roth saw at a race in Las Vegas.
• "Slick Black Cadillac" by Quiet Riot.
• 'Red Barchetta' by Rush (Band).
• Foreigner: "Rev on the Red Line", about street racing and the four hundred horses under the hood.
• "Chevette" by Audio Adrenaline.
• Black Sunshine and Dragula by White Zombie
• "My Old Yellow Car" by Dan Seals.
• "The Keys To Her Ferrari" by Thomas Dolby parodies this trope.
• "Open Road" by Bryan Adams.
• "Wheels" by AC/DC.
• Brazil saw a trend in the so-called "universitary country" regarding these: "Camaro Amarelo" (Yellow Camaro) - and its parody "Gol 1.0" -, "Vem Ni Mim Dodge Ram" (Come at me, Dodge Ram), "De Land Rover É Fácil" (It's Easier with a Land Rover), and "Fiorino", which even starts referencing the previous one ("It's easier and prettier with a Land Rover, but I wanna see you throw the chick at the back of a Fiorino!").
• "Driving in my Car" by Madness, which also crosses over into The Alleged Car.
• "Drive My Car" by The Beatles.
  • Subverted in that she's got no car (and it's breaking her heart).
• "Autobahn" by Kraftwerk.
• "Galaxie" by Blind Melon.
• "Jesus Built My Hotrod" by Ministry, a more lyrically nonsensical example.
• A variation is Walk Off the Earth's car loop version of their song "Gang of Rhythm". The song isn't about a car, the song is played on the car.
• "Pedal To The Metal" by Kazzer.
• "Mach 5" by The Presidents of the United States of America. BTW, it's not about Speed Racer's car.
• "Fast Car" by Tracy Chapman is a deconstruction. Two lovers escape in the title car, but they have nothing waiting for them. No jobs and miserable lives ensue.
• Totally subverted by The Cat Empire's ironically titled "The Car Song" which is basically about lack of ambition and procrastination and really only mentions cars to illustrate these points in its chorus.
• "No Particular Place To Go" by Chuck Berry. His date with his girl is foiled because he can't unfasten her seat belt.
• "Making Love In A Subaru" by Damaskas Hollodan from The Dr. Demento Show on radio.
• "My Hooptie" and "Testarossa" by Sir Mix-A-Lot.
• "Dream Machine" by Lazerhawk.
• "Let's Take a Car" by Marsheaux.
• "Black Pantera" by Betamaxx.
• "I'll Rust With You" from Steam Powered Giraffe mentions classic cars as part of a disappearing culture.
• "One Piece At A Time" by Johnny Cash, about a Cadillac assembly-line worker who smuggles components home over twenty years to build his own Caddy.
• "Hearse Driver", EJ Wells. (There are also several other songs of this, or very close, name).
  I got my hearse
  Things could be worse
  I could be riding in the back
• "Dream Cars" by Neon Neon.
• "Rust In My Car" by New Zealand supergroup Citizen Band.
• Apollo 440, regularly featured in the Gran Turismo series, have "Cold Rock the Mic", "Hold The Brakes", "Start the Car", etc.
• Hobo Johnson: "Subaru Crosstrek XV" sings the praises of the titular car, which is apparently pretty reliable and has suspension as soft as cute little baby's neck (but don't tow with it even though it comes with a hitch, you'll ruin the suspension).
• "'92 Subaru" by Fountains of Wayne gets increasingly implausibly hyperbolic about the amazing features of the titular, pimped-out used Subaru. It's nominally a love song based on the chorus, but it's really about the car.
• "La Suburban Dorada" by Los Huracanes del Norte is a Mexican narco-folk song about two cartel goons running a drug delivery from Zacatecas to Colorado on an armored, tuned, golden Chevrolet Suburban. The first part is about the goons boasting about the car. The second part is about how they unleash hell on a roadblock when a Dirty Cop tells them that the police has an APB on the Suburban (with the song ending on a news bulletin about how the crooks are now the subject of a Cop Killer Manhunt).
  They felt well protected in the golden Suburban
  Its engine was tricked out and it was completely armored
  Arturo proudly said: "not even the Devil can catch us"
• "Culiacán vs. Mazatlán" by Gerardo Ortiz and Calibre .50 is a Mexican banda song about a rich man from Culiacán, Sinaloa with a 500 HP Chevy Camaro racing against another rich man from Mazatlán with a Dodge Viper. The latter wins, but the former turns out to also own a Corvette, asks for a rematch, and wins the second race.
• "Wheels Of Steel" by Saxon is about an otherwise non-descript '68 Chevrolet modified to hell and back from sidepipes to so much compression that it has to run on avgas.
• "Souped-Up Ford" by Rory Gallagher is another parody as it's about a chav in a tricked-out compact four-banger. "It's a front-wheel drive, and it sounds like a beehive."
• "Opel-Gang" by Die Toten Hosen.
• "Travelling Without Moving" from Jamiroquai.
• "Bugatti" by Tiga
• "Cadillac" by the Spider Murphy Gang.
• "Backseat Of Your Cadillac" by C.C. Catch.
• "Manta" by Norbert & die Feiglinge kicked off the Manta joke wave which in turn led to two films and even more Manta songs.
• The "Anlaßjodler" by Fredl Fesl is about a car that doesn't start up and trying to fix it with all the wrong tools.
• "Taxi" by Jawoll is about a taxi driver who drives a girl home one night and then ends up going home with her.
• "Taxi" by DÖF is about someone who is standing outside in the cold and waiting for a taxi that takes longer and longer to arrive.
• "Ich will Spaß" by Markus is about someone who Drives Like Crazy in a Maserati and cares for neither traffic laws nor fuel prices.
• "Long May You Run by Neil Young, which he wrote about his first car, a 1948 Buick Roadmaster hearse.
• "I Can't Drive 55" by Sammy Hagar.
• Australian comedian Steve Abbott, in character as The Sandman, once sang of a classmate of his who loved the Datsun Homer Van so much, he'd constantly scrawl doodles of it in his schoolbooks and imitate the engine sounds, until another kid stabbed him in the leg with a compass, and he stopped doing it. Sandman, incidentally, in-universe, ended up driving a Holden Gemini.
• "JEEP" by Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi. The refrain is "driving with my Jeep".
• Public Enemy's "You're Gonna Get Yours", sometimes subtitled "My 98 Oldsmobile"
• "Ode to My Car" by Adam Sandler is a comedy song about how terrible his car is.
• The Medallions' "59 Volvo", "Buick 59", "Coupe De Ville Baby" and "Push Button Automobile".
• "455 Rocket," originally recorded by Kathy Mattea. A woman buys a used Oldsmobile with a powerful V8 engine and has fun beating the locals in drag races until she wrecks it by crashing through a guardrail.
• The first verse of "Motor City Steel" by The Dandy Warhols namedrops Ford, Chevy, GMC's Jimmy, and the USA-1 (a monster truck).
• Sonny Day and the Versatiles' "Speedillac".
• "Ferrari Boyz" by Gucci Mane and Waka Flocka Flame is the title track of their collaborative mixtape, and features the pair rapping about their respective new Ferrari's.
• "Mercedes Benz" by Janis Joplin is actually a satirical Money Song.
• "Beamer, Benz or Bentley" by Lloyd Banks.
• Charli XCX has many, "Vroom Vroom" being most pertinent example, but she also has "Porsche," "White Mercedes," "Crash," and "Speed Drive."
• Averted with "Red Cortina" by The Saw Doctors. Despite the title being the name of a model of car, the song is about first love.

Radio

• The Car Talk brothers are collectors and probably the leading disseminators of songs about Alleged Cars. They've released two compilation albums, "Car Talk Car Tunes" and "Born Not to Run".

Theatre

• "Greased Lightning" from Grease.
• "Cadillac Car" from Dreamgirls.
• "The Surrey with the Fringe on Top" from Oklahoma! is basically a car song about a horse-drawn carriage.

Video Games

• "Heaven is a '57 metallic gray" from Gitadora and DanceDanceRevolution.
• "Firebird" from Double Dragon Neon.

Western Animation

• Oddly inverted in The Brave Little Toaster. In "Worthless" cars at a junkyard sing about their people.
• Phineas and Ferb:
  • "My Ride From Outer Space", as Ferb takes a tricked-out alien spaceship for a test run.
  • "Cruisin' My Sweet Ride", sung by the boys as they show off the Cool Car they made from the rust heap their father wanted to fix up for Candace.

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