Check out the cool rides and hot guitar licks in the Rock Stars’ Cars & Guitars 2 exhibit at The Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan.
We had a great time at the opening for this show, checking out more than 20 custom cars, 50 custom guitars, stage costumes and rock props—many of them donated by the music star owners themselves.
The cars were the real stars of this show—something clearly evident at the exhibit entrance where a black-and-white 1958 Ford Ranchero took center stage among amps and a photo of Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen playing his five-neck Hamer guitar.
We saw the five-neck Hamer, one of B.B. King’s “Lucille” guitars and many other instruments on display that day.
I particularly loved checking out custom cars like the pearl-lavender 1953 Buick Skylark, complete with a matching amp and guitar, belonging to Metallica’s James Hetfield and Alice Cooper’s lime-green “Billion Dollar Babies” themed 1939 Lincoln Zephyr.
Check out my post at The Urbane Life for a story about our visit and for photos of the Skylark, Zephyr and some of the other action that day.
Thanks to Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby for creating and coordinating Photo Friday to link travel photos and blog posts across the Web.
© Dominique King 2009
This was a great exhibit. I want Janis Joplin's Porsche! Or Maybe that Alice Cooper Billion Dollar Baby :)
Posted by: Tim | May 22, 2009 at 05:43 AM
What a fun exhibit!
Posted by: Lucia | May 22, 2009 at 07:26 AM
HOW cool is this?? i love that you took such great photos to share with us.thanks!
Posted by: Jessie Voigts | May 22, 2009 at 09:27 AM
This reminds me of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles - very cool.
Posted by: Mara | May 22, 2009 at 01:05 PM
Detroit comes thru again. What a fun exhibit. It's kind of like the rock and roll hall of fame, but the rockers cars!
Photo Friday - Guatemala Zoo will surprise you!
Posted by: marina villatoro | May 22, 2009 at 01:09 PM
Great photo and fab exhibit! I was born not too far from Dearborn, so brings back lots of fond memories!
Posted by: soultravelers3 | May 23, 2009 at 11:42 AM
Was this an updated exhibit from the one at the Henry Ford in 2007?
That one had Rick Neilson's guitars, one of ZZ Top's Hudson, et all; Elton Johns' Bentley's and Ted Nugent's Ford Explorer. The Explorer looked like it had many off-road excursions: Cardboard on the HF floor underneith the oil pan.
Posted by: JimmyK64 | May 23, 2009 at 02:37 PM
Tim-Guess we'll have to fight over that Alice Cooper ride, although I really did think that James Hetfield car was pretty fine!
Lucia-It was a fun show...especially being there the day they had live music at the museum.
Jessie-We saw the show advertised and knew we had to go see it. I'm glad I had two places to post photos as I had enough decent ones to do so.
Posted by: Dominique | May 23, 2009 at 08:56 PM
Mara-I've heard of the Petersen Museum, but we haven't gotten out there yet. Both of us do enjoy visiting a good car museum. We recently visited the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum in Indiana...so I plan to blog about that before summer is out.
Marina-The show did remind me a bit of Cleveland's Rock & Roll Hall of Fame + Museum. It was fun to see the rockers' cars and to see film clips of some of the cars in music videos.
SoulTravelers3-We have memberships in The Henry Ford, so we do get out there several times a year. The permanent car exhibits there are always fun, too.
Jimmy-Yes, this was an update of the earlier show (mentioned that over in my Urbane story about this exhibit). We missed the earlier show, so we really wanted to make sure we saw this one. I saw one of Ted's guitars there, but no Explorer...sounds like that was one of Terrible Ted's hunting vehicles!
Posted by: Dominique | May 23, 2009 at 09:05 PM