Vince Neil Gets a Piece of the Action at ‘High Tide’ Car Show
From a tragic road incident to Mötley Crüe’s farewell tour being sponsored by Dodge, Vince Neil’s history is littered with mayhem & cars.
Vince Neil is the legendary lead singer of Mötley Crüe, a band full of legendary talents. In addition to making some of the most rocking tunes, Neil also spends his time in the fast lane offstage, riding in some truly incredible cars. It was no surprise then, when it was announced that Neil would be joining fellow rocker Sammy Hagar at Hagar’s upcoming High Tide Beach Party & Car Show, October 6 in Huntington Beach, California.
Neil grew up in Los Angeles, and his connection to cars was immediate. His father was the head mechanic for the Los Angeles County police department, and often brought police cars home. Neil’s first hands-on car-related memory was helping his father rebuild his uncle’s car, including the engine, as a project.
His father bought him a 1954 stepside Chevy pickup to learn how to drive stick. Once he mastered the manual shift though, Neil immediately found a Hurst shifter to install because he didn’t want to change gear himself anymore. Neil was quickly becoming a gearhead.
His next car was earned from playing in a band by night and working manual labor gigs during the day. This time he didn’t go for something American, instead he bought himself a 1974 Datsun 240Z. From there, his past and present car collection started to get eclectic and expensive.
As Mötley Crüe became more famous, Neil’s tastes for finer rides emerged. As did his hunger for hardcore mayhem. The stories of the bands exploits are truly the stuff of legends, as we read in their book The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band. Neil lived through it all; epic partying, rocking out, girls, girls, girls, excess. But tragedy was around the corner.
Sadly, the most infamous car Neil owned was the red 1972 Ford Pantera he was driving and crashed while intoxicated in 1985, resulting in the death of his friend and fellow rocker, Hanoi Rock’s Nicholas Dingley. The passengers of the other car Neil hit head on also suffered serious head injuries as well. The tragedy is something Neil has had to live with ever since. He’s publicly confessed he wasn’t punished seriously enough by just a 30-day jail sentence and a $2.5 million in restitution. In a reflective mood, Neil once told the now defunct Blender magazine, “I should have gone to prison. I definitely deserved to go to prison. But I did 30 days in jail and got laid and drank beer, because that’s the power of cash. That’s f**ked up.” The accident eventually led to Neil getting sober in the late 1980’s.
Neil’s love of cars was not dampened, though, and it’s not just about the fast ones for Neil. On the slower side, he bought a 1994 Rolls-Royce Silver Spur III from the Sultan of Brunei that was originally ordered in red and has a cream interior. Then, the opposite end of the dripping-with-money spectrum, he owned a pimped-out 2002 Hummer H2, complete with a vanity plate.
Calm but not not necessarily sedate, is his 2008 Bentley Continental GT Speed. Neil describes the Bentley as a perfect road-trip car for his journeys from San Francisco to LA. With a hand-stitched leather interior, and a 600 horsepower engine inside a beautifully engineered car it shows Neil has a taste for the finer things underneath the hard-bitten Rock and Roll patina. He also has a love for racing. A little known fact is that in 1992 he competed in the CART/Firestone/Dayton Indy Lights Series with an average speed of 140 mph and finished 12th. More recently, he dropped the green flag for 2015 Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach’s Pro/Celebrity Race before going onstage to play some Crue hits.
Of course, Neil also has the expected Ferraris and Lamborghinis we expect from our rock superstars. His daily driver in Vegas was a 2008 Lamborghini Gallardo, and his 2001 Ferrari 360 Modena F1 became a reliable ride for getting home, sweet home in San Fransisco–despite having a Borla exhaust so loud he couldn’t listen to music while driving. He’s also owned a Ferrari 328, a Testarossa and a Mondial. The Mondial he bought in 1983 and, to give us an idea of just how much money Motley Crue was making at the time, he had two bank accounts and used his grocery account to buy it on sight from a car dealers lot.
Neil still loves his American cars as well. For a while, he drove a 2006 Dodge Magnum as a car people wouldn’t notice when he took the dogs out or ran chores. For absolute utility, his 1995 Ford Ranger may even still serve him today. A little more in keeping with Neil’s rock and roll profile is a 1932 Ford he had custom built and was a regular site around Las Vegas, particularly on Hot Rod Night at Feelgood’s Rock Bar and Grill.
2015 was an epic year for Neil with both cars and music. That was the year Mötley Crüe made their North American farewell tour sponsored by Dodge as part of the company’s 100 anniversary celebration. The relationship with the band started in 2014 when Dodge licensed the track Kickstart My Heart, for an advertising campaign. As part of the anniversary Dodge also sponsored an event at Fast N’ Loud host Richard Rawlings‘ music concert venue. The event was a Dodge only car show and full live show from Mötley Crüe, reportedly stripped of their usual stage visuals and pyrotechnics and performing with a renewed energy to a more intimate crowd of 2000 people.
It’s not all about Dodge for Neil though. He has also seen buying himself a 1965 Superformance Shelby Cobra from Celebrity Cars Las Vegas, showing Neil just isn’t about brands and badges, but also cars and performance as a whole. Whether it’s truck that does the hard work around his homes and businesses, a full-on Italian supercar, luxury cruiser, performance replica, fully built hot rod, or something to get things done around town incognito, we can’t fault his taste in cars. Even the crazy Limo with a hot tub built into the back from the early days of Mötley Crüe.
To see Vince Neil at the High Tide Beach Party and Car Show, go to the website for ticket information.
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