Girls, cars, pastel clothes, and lots of hairspray. Oh, yeah. And awesome cars
“Miami Vice Theme” by Jan Hammer
The Car: Ferrari Daytona (fake)
Few 80s shows encapsulate the decade and all its flamboyant style better than Miami Vice.
“Sleeping Bag” by ZZ Top
The Cars: 1933 Ford, Bearfoot monster truck
Just about every ZZ Top videos of the 1980s featured Billy Gibbons’ 1933 Ford “Eliminator” hot rod. Not coincidentally, the car was plastered across the 1983 album of the same name. Under the hood was a straightforward but stone-reliable Chevy 350 V-8.
You’re probably more likely to remember the videos for “Legs”, “Gimme All Your Lovin,” and “Sharp Dressed Man.” But don’t sleep on “Sleeping Bag” of 1985’s Afterburner album. While it starts off slow, it builds to some truly excellent vehicular mayhem. Remember, monster trucks were new in the 1980s. In this video, the Eliminator gets chased by Bearfoot (a not-quite-as-cool rip of the classic Bigfoot monster truck). There’s also a duel in a construction site between the Eliminator and a pair of front-end loaders, because yeah, ZZ Top. In the end, the Eliminator is reborn as a soaring space shuttle of sorts (not kidding) and finally takes out the monster truck.
“I Can’t Drive 55” by Sammy Hagar
The Car: Ferrari 512 BB
Before Sammy Hagar ruined Van Halen in 1985, the rocker had a solid solo career. His 1979 album was Street Machine featured the killer track “Trans Am (Highway Wonderland)”. So Hagar certainly wasn’t shy about his passion for hot cars in the 1980s. But it was “I Can’t Drive 55” in 1984 that became his (and everyone else’s) speed anthem, and for the music video, Hagar chose a black Ferrari 512 BB. The top of Ferrari’s range at the time, the beast powered by a flat 12-cylinder was the perfect sports car to prove the point that 55 mph on the freeway is painfully slow. Whether or not you like the song, the video is worth watching just to see this rare Ferrari in action.
“Here I Go Again” by Whitesnake
The Car: Jaguar XJ6
If there’s one video from the 1980s that men of a certain age will remember, it’s probably Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again.” The reason is obvious: The two matching Jaguar XJ-6 sedans. Wait, what. This is the one with actress Tawny Kitean, lead singer David Coverdale’s girlfriend at the time, cartwheeling over the hoods of the cars? Oh yeah, right. That probably made an impression, too.
Why two Jaguars? Aside from the fact that two is better than one, there doesn’t appear to be any good reason other than the fact that one of them belonged to Coverdale and the other to the video’s director. So yeah, we’re guessing not a lot of thought went into this one.
“I’m on Fire” by Bruce Springsteen
The Cars: Chevy Camaro, Ford Thunderbird
The Boss is a big car guy who often references them in his lyrics. His first car, a flamed 1957 Chevy sold at auction for a staggering $468,000. He still owns a very cool ’60 Corvette. So when it was time to make a video for “I’m on Fire” from his hugely successful 1985 album Born in the USA, Springsteen chose two classics—a white T-bird and a blue Chevy Camaro RS.
Springsteen plays a mechanic hired to fix the T-Bird for a woman. The Boss gets the car dialed-in and then takes it on a late night cruise to deliver it to her. This video is much more subtle than most 1980s videos, but it does show Springsteen driving the car, which is pretty cool.
“Hot Girls in Love” by Loverboy
The Car: 1940 Ford Coupe
I’m going to be real with you: This video has so much terrible that it’s actually great. We see the band members in their full head-banded and permed-out regalia playing on a pile of whisky cask barrels labeled “nitro.” But it’s the scenes with the “hot girl” cruising around in a hot-rodded 1940 Ford coupe that make this video great. (We know it’s a ’40 by the front plate, by the way.)
This video might be silly, but the car certainly isn’t. The builder did a nice job lowering the car down on its body-colored steel wheels and fat tires. It’s got a tough stance; we’d drive it any day.
Eventually, the video girl runs out of fuel and is magically transported to a strange field of gas pumps in a faux dirt lot where, of course, the band is playing. Don’t ask me to explain. It was the 80s.
“Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car” By Billy Ocean
The Cars: Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet, Jeep CJ-5
Aside from maybe a Lamborghini Countach or Ferrari Testarossa, the Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet may be the most memorable sports cars of the 1980s. And Billy Ocean’s late 1980s model is featured heavily in this video for his biggest. Oddly, the car is a right hand drive model wearing American license plates. Ocean hails from across the pond, so perhaps this was his personal car brought over here and used in the video, or perhaps the video was made to look American and shot overseas. A right-hand drive late 1960s Jeep CJ-5 is also featured in the video, adding to the mystery. Sadly, the video features precious little actual driving by Ocean. Most of the shooting appears to have been done while the car was stationary.
“It’s Not Love” by Dokken
The Truck: Kenworth W900A
If you’re going to do an over-the-top 80s video, then you may as well do it right. In this one, metal band Dokken rides around Los Angeles on a flat bed trailer pulled by a black Kenworth big rig (driven by an attractive blond girl, naturally). The band plays live on the flatbed as they cruise through Los Angeles neighborhoods from downtown to Hollywood accompanied by cheers and sign-a-longs from fans. Some of the best footage shows the rig cruising down Sunset Boulevard at night (the core of the heavy metal scene in the 1980s) past mob crowds of Dokken fans. Staged? Yeah, of course. Still, it must have been cool to see your favorite metal band drive by back in the day.
“Power of Love” by Huey Lewis and the News
The Car: 1981 Delorean
It’s hard to believe Back to the Future is almost 30 years old. But back in ’85, everything about that movie was hot stuff—from Doc Brown’s DeLorean to, yes, Huey Lewis and the News. Lewis had two of the biggest hits on the soundstrack, “Back in Time” and “The Power of Love,” and even briefly appeared in the film.
The best part of this video is in the first two minutes. Doc drives the Delorean up to the front entrance of a bar where the band is playing. (It’s Uncle Charlie’s, a club in Marin County where Lewis jammed before he was famous). Doc, who appears to still be in the movie, tries to keep fans from mobbing the car. Inside the bar, Lewis talks about the film and even shows a guy in the crowd wearing a “Back to the Future” jacket. Outside, some fans get into the De:orean and it takes off for the Future…or is that the past?
Bonus: Early in that first scene, you even get a glimpse of a grey Toyota pickup that’s very similar to the iconic black one in the movie. Coincidence? Nah.
“Don’t’ Cry” By Guns N’ Roses
The Car: 1966 Ford Shelby Mustang GT 350-H
Okay, if you want to get technical about it, this 1991 video missed the cutoff to be part of the 80s. But watch it and you’ll know that it belongs here.
Early in the video, Axl Rose stumbles drunk through a fake snowstorm dressed in what appears to be some sort of military uniform from the 1700s. Then, most of the video is taken up by Rose’s two supermodel girlfriends fighting one another over the frontman. Boring. But then, about halfway though, Slash saves the day as he recklessly drives a super cool classic Shelby Mustang GT350-H down an LA canyon road. As it fishtails across the tight two-laner, Slash seems to aim it straight for the edge of the road and plunges it over the embankment where it hits the ground and bursts into flames. It’s a stunt = that shows how important music videos were at the time—that’s a car stunt you’d more likely see in a big-budget movie. It’s likely the car used in the crash was a just a six-cylinder fastback and not a real Shelby. (We hope so, anyway.) But that’s still one of the best automotive castings and stunts in any music video.