The rev of a car engine. A motor humming. An accelerated speed. Regardless of any hidden subtexts of sex, life, mortality, and more themes, cars have had a distinct influence on the stories within songs throughout the decades from the sexual innuendos of The Beatles‘ 1965 hit “Drive My Car” to the girl-gone-wild in the 1966 Mack Rice-penned “Mustang Sally,” made famous by Wilson Pickett.
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In 1983, Prince added another notch, chronicling a one-night stand in his 1999 hit ‘Little Red Corvette.” Meanwhile, Gary Numan‘s 1979 prophetic “Cars” was more about the negative and isolatory implications technology would have on human life.
Along the way, bands have also taken to vehicles when crafting their names. In 1969, Frank Zappa produced the sole album by girl group the GTOs, named after the famous Pontiac muscle car. By the late ’80s, Crash Test Dummies used the name as a joke at first but stuck with the moniker, taken from the diagnostic mannequins used to test the efficiency of airbags and study the impact on the human body during a crash.
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Christian band Relient K named themselves after the Plymouth Reliant, first introduced in the early ’80s, while indie rockers Car Seat Headrest got their name since singer Will Toledo would record his vocals in the back seat of his car for the band’s earlier albums.
However cars are cited, there are a number of bands that were inspired by a bevy of four-wheeled vehicles. Here’s a look at five bands whose names were inspired by cars.
1. REO Speedwagon
In 1967, REO Speedwagon got its name from the 1915 light motor truck designed by Ransom Eli Olds, the predecessor to the pickup truck. On the first day, the band had started looking for their name, REO keyboardist Neal Doughty saw the name written on a blackboard during a history of transportation class.
Instead of pronouncing their name as “REE-oh,” like the REO Speedwagon Motor Company car, the band spelled out the first part as “R-E-O.”
Read more about the band name REO Speedwagon HERE.
2. The Cars
For Boston rockers The Cars, their band name didn’t come from any vehicle in particular. Formed in 1976 with Ric Ocasek, Benjamin Orr, Elliot Easton, Greg Hawkes, and David Robinson, the band just liked the universality of the title, and that it wasn’t pinned to any particular era or sound.
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“It was easy to remember and it wasn’t pegged to a specific decade or sound,” said Robinson in a 2018 interview. “The name was meaningless and conjured up nothing, which was perfect.”
3. Pantera
Originally named Gemini, then Eternity when they formed in 1981, the hard rockers took their name from the De Tomaso Pantera car, first introduced by the Italian automobile manufacturer De Tomaso in 1971.
At first, late drummer Vinnie Paul didn’t know what a Pantera was until his schoolmate told him it was a “badass race car.” The song eventually took on more meaning for the band.
“The name Pantera was actually suggested to me by a friend in high school,” said Paul, who presented it to the band. The band later learned that Pantera also stands for “panther” in Spanish. “It just built from there,” added Paul, who along with his brother, late Pantera guitarist “Dimebag” Darrell, also grew up in Pantego, Texas.
4. Galaxie 500
Massachusetts alt-rockers Galaxie 500 were here, and then they were gone. Formed in 1987 with singer and guitarist Dean Wareham, and drummer Damon Krukowski, who had been in a number of punk bands prior, and later rounded out with bassist and vocalist Naomi Yang, the band only lasted three albums before breaking up in 1991.
Within their short frame of time, Galaxie 500—named a friend’s Ford Galaxie 500 car — left behind a collection of shoegazing favorites, including “Tugboat,” “Strange” and their cover of Joy Divison’s “Ceremony,” released on their 1989 EP Blue Thunder, while influencing everyone from Sonic Youth, Neutral Milk Hotel, Low, and Brian Jonestown Massacre.
5. Chevelle
Illinois alt-metal trio Chevelle, first formed by brothers Pete and Sam Loeffler and with Matt Scott, loved fast cars. The Loeffler’s father had a particular penchant for the Chevelle, a mid-sized car first introduced by Chevrolet from 1964 through 1974.
“When we named the band, I think I was 16 years old,” revealed Pete Loeffler in 2012. “I was like ‘Hey, let’s just pick any old car name and throw it out there, that’ll work.'”
He continued, “I grew up around hot rods and going to car shows—Midwest kind of thing—and we’ve got pictures of us running boards of ’32 Fords and things like that as babies. So, it’s just something that kind of grew along the way back when, as a joke, and it stayed with us. Hopefully, we made the name cool again, because you haven’t seen a Chevelle in a while.”
The band released their debut Point #1 in 1999 and their ninth album, NIRATIAS, in 2021.
Photo: Chris Walter/WireImage
