Aerosmith's Joe Perry buys a ROCKIN' 1971 Olds 442 from the Volo, IL Auto Museum

(above and two below) Joe Perry's 1971 Olds 442

(above) note the bench seat . . . important!
(above and three below) Rich Brigidi's 1966 Olds 442

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First saw the following as I was crusin' the net in search of . . . something related but unrelated, if you get my drift. Suddenly, this:

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"ROCK-N-ROLL STARS VISIT VOLO AUTO MUSEUM"

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"Volo, IL: Visit the Volo Auto Museum and you're guaranteed to see some of the hottest cars to ever hit the street . . . and you might even spot a rock star or two.

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"After playing two sold-out concerts in the area, James Hetfield, lead singer of Metallica, spent a day touring the Volo Auto Museum. Hetfield said he traveled to the museum specifically to see the George Barris Movie and TV Car Collection.

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"He snapped a ton of pictures of the original Batmobile, Grandpa Munster's Drag-U-La, the Starsky and Hutch Gran Torino, and other famous Barris cars. He also purchased several Barris items from the museum's gift shop. The museum's staff honored Hetfield's request not to take any pictures and to keep his visit as low key as possible. With a big smile on his face, Hetfield left, promising to visit again soon.

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"Metallica is not the museum's only Rock-N-Roll connection. Joe Perry, lead guitarist for Aerosmith, purchased an Oldsmobile 442 convertible from the museum.

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"Perry said he searched the entire nation before finally finding the right car (a 1971 model) hidden among the museum's collection of nearly 300 muscle cars. He said his search was made more difficult because he wanted a bench seat (so he could sit close to his wife)."

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Dave Boe at the Volo Auto Museum was kind to send photos of Perry's 442.

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Then, I contacted Rich Brigidi, the famous Philadelphia street racer whose story was first told by Bob Frump in the Philadelphia Inquirer, where I discovered it and republished it (on pages 164-165) in ROCKIN' DOWN THE HIGHWAY. Rich has become a friend, and he's helping ROCKIN' become a television series. More on that in short due course.

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Here's a little bit of what Rich had to say about his own 1966 442:

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"Pretty coincidental about Perry wanting a 442 with a bench seat instead of buckets. When I ordered my 442 in March of 1966, I ordered a bench seat with it. In 1966 the convertible Cutlass with the 442 option automatically came with buckets so I had to wait a little longer for the car just because of the bench seat. I'm not sure, but I could have the only '66 442 convertible without buckets. I just love the bench seat/4-speed look.

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"I don't know the 1971 442's anywhere near as well as I know the 1966-67 model year. But from the pictures you sent, I see that Joe's car is an automatic-on-the-column with the bench seat. To have the bench seat with an automatic, the shifter has to be on the steering column because the floor-shift automativ would come with a console (and that would necessitate bucket seats). I've seen 1971 442 column-shift automatics like Joe's, so they're around. But I believe them to be pretty scarce, so, yes, I'm sure he looked for his for some time.

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"The only other thing that caught my attention is the black stripe down the center of the hood. Again, my expertise is not in the 1971-72 model years, but I don't remember the hood stripes quite looking like that. I also see there were some additional modifications like the nerf-bar bumpers, and the lack of the triple side stripes (that's to say, the way I've seen 'em in most photos). I also would have liked a picture of the engine! But that won't mean a thing if Joe bought the car for cruising with his wife, as the paragraph states."

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You can see and read more about Rich's 442 at http://www.442.com/vcs/1964_1972/brigidi.html

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Here's what Rich said there: "I ordered this car new in '66 and after one year I was at the dragstrip almost every weekend. 1966 was the only year that the tri-carb L69 package was available, and only 240 L69 convertibles were produced. The car classified E/Stock and won its class 23 times at three different tracks: Atco, New Jersey; Vargo, Pennsylvania; and Maplegrove, Pennsylvania. It ran a best ET of 12.71 with an average ET of about 12.82 and top mph of 105. This was while being street-driven every day!

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"I sold it in 1970, and was fortunate enough to find it and repurchase it in 1979. It's now restored to its Sixties appearance (to the dismay of some purists), and has Cragar mags, Sun tach, and Stewart-Warner gauges. The car appeared in the 1994 Snap-On Tools calendar, on the cover of Muscle Monthly (NMCA Magazine), and twice in Hot Rod Magazine's "Readers' Rides" section.

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"In 1995, this convertible won "Best in Class" in Street Stock at the Olds Nationals in Greensboro, NC and scored 946 points at Atlanta the following year in Seniors. Now it's shown less and driven more, and I've come to one conclusion: there is NOTHING like the sound of a musclecar with the trips wide open."

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The Olds 442 was first introduced as an option package for the F-85 and Cutlass models sold in the U.S. beginning with the 1964 model year. It became a model in its own right from 1968 to 1971, then reverted to an option through the mid-1970s (it was revived as a name in the 1980s on the rear-wheel-drive Cutlass Supreme and again in the early 1990s as an option package for the new front-wheel-drive Cutlass).

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The 442 was born out of the competition between Pontiac Division and Oldsmobile. It began as a hasty reponse to the Pontiac Tempest GTO. Some say the 442 was IT, the ultimate muscle car.

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The 442 package originally signified the engine's 4-barrel carb, the 4-speed manual transmission, and the dual (2) exhausts.

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Interestingly (and revisiting for a moment my posts from earlier this month about the Olds Rocket 88), Oldsmobile automobiles have paced the Indianapolis 500 more than any other car manufacturer's product. In 1949 famous Indy winner Wilbur Shaw drove a Rocket 88 convertible, with Olds' chief engineer Jack Wolfram riding shotgun. That same car was available at the dealerships. In 1960, Indy winner Sam Hanks drove an Olds 98 convertible as the Indy pace car (the last pace car delivered stock from the dealership). In 1970, Indy winner Roger Ward drove a 442 convertible to lead off that year's race; it too was available from the dealership, but the actual pace car's engine was tweaked.

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You can read more about the Volo Auto Museum at http://volocars.com/. The Museum is now in its 47th year, located on a 30-acre theme park. The collection includes nearly 300 antique and famous cars, which it displays year-round in five climate-controlled showrooms. The Museum also has established itself as a specialized collector-car sales company . . . so Joe Perry came to the right place.