5 musicians whose cars brought staggering prices
We dedicated the May/June 2023 issue of Hagerty Drivers Club magazine to the deep connections between music, musicians, and cars, including several fun lists featuring your favorite car songs. Come back often or click the Music & Cars tag to stay up to date on these stories as they roll out online. You can also jam with our custom Music & Cars playlist on Spotify, available here.
Celebrity ownership of classic cars is often a huge driving factor in their big sale prices at auction, and fans have paid thousands of times over the odds to buy cars once owned by their musical heroes. From high-buck supercars to fairly conventional machines with morbid histories, here’s a rundown of the musicians whose cars have fetched big percentages over similar cars.
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Keith Richards
The Rolling Stones rocker’s cars regularly outsell their normal counterparts, but his 1965 Bentley S3 Continental Flying Spur provided the biggest bang, selling in 2015 for £763,100 ($1.18M), or 304 percent over any other example.
Elton John
Sir Elton is a frequent seller, with 17 different sales over the years. But when it comes to pure profit, his 1956 Bentley S1 Continental fastback at £196,250 (around $283,000) in 2001 accounted for a 341 percent markup.
Elvis Presley
The King’s cars always bring big money, and his 1975 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham is a standout, after reaching £66,083 (around $81,500) during an online auction in January 2022—a 518 percent premium over any other Caddy of the same ilk.
Freddie Mercury
The Queen frontman’s 1974 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow sold last November for $322,861, an astonishing 3871 percent over any other example.
Notorious B.I.G.
In 2017, the 1997 GMC Suburban in which Christopher Wallace, aka Biggie Smalls, aka the Notorious B.I.G., was shot to death sold for $1.5 million, an increase of 18,650 percent compared with a similar Suburban.
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Damn. This is SOOOO OUT THERE!!!………
Hey everyone — the folks who buy these STAR cars, do it for their egos for sure, but then……they eventually flip them for huge profit ( well maybe not the Suburban ) .. it’s like buying rare Art.
Steve McQueens cars go for big premiums.
If Billy Gibbons were to sell his Coddington built Caddy, that is a car I would pay big money for!
Again, burying the lead. Is that John Denver in the Elvis jacket in the lead photo?
A friend of mine owned a Mitsubishi SUV previously owned by Demi Moore. They were just glad when someone bought it from them. It was well past prime.
And no, it didn’t have really big headlights. 😉
More proof that it doesn’t matter what you think, these cars are indeed worth more than if they were owned by someone else. Provenance counts, always has, always will.
Good Lord, Elvis’s car went at an outrageous price, especially sense even at a quick glance I can see in a long distance picture, the front & rear of the hood , bumper and other gaps are way out of wack. Plus what is the big deal about having some minor pop stars car anyways ? Now if it was a presidents car or some historically significant persons or a very rare car, that could possibly make a difference to me. Otherwise, not so much.
Currently I am a curator of a nice 8 car collection that contains FDR’s 33 Lincoln KB Dual Cowl Sport and that I’d consider to be a much more historically significant car than any listed here, and the owner recently paid considerably less than some of these other cars listed here. Oh Well, I guess what they say about a sucker being born ever second , holds true
I guess I’m just fussy that way ,but when I go to car shows things like bad gaps, incorrect accessories, bad restoration quality, ect really bothers me. I see many cars that look great at a distance , but when you look at the details it knocks points off for me when I get asked to judge at a show . IMO there’s no excuse to have flaws on a restored car and sloppy build details throws me off the tracks,,,,but then I’ve restored classic cars for >55 years and am as fussy of an old coot , as you’d ever want to meet when it come to restorations.