Joe Strummer’s 1963 Chalfont Blue Ford Thunderbird, originally purchased by Strummer in 1987 for $4,200 is now for sale on Ebay. The press release contains some interesting info on Joe's life in LA along with some nice photos of a cherry T-bird. It's cool to imagine Strummer cruising the streets of Los Angeles in this ride, humming tunes and listening to the radio.
In 1987 and 1988 Joe Strummer was living in Los Angeles, in a beautiful wood-framed house with a swimming-pool on Ridgemount Drive off Laurel Canyon where he recorded his first solo album, Earthquake Weather, at Baby O studio on Sunset Boulevard. During this time, Joe’s principal mode of transport was this racy Chalfont Blue 1963 Ford Thunderbird. He would take his partner Gaby and their two young daughters on family outings to the desert in the T-Bird. In May 1988 he and Gaby drove the 850 miles in the Ford Thunderbird to New Mexico for the Santa Fe film festival where Mystery Train, Jim Jarmusch’s masterly independent film in which Joe starred, was being screened.
“This is such a special car to me. I knew Joe Strummer as a boy growing up in London. He was one of a kind, just like this car,” remarks Alex Manos, owner of the Beverly Hills Car Club. “Joe had an enormous love for American cars and I feel it’s serendipitous that this beautiful 1963 Ford Thunderbird is coming to us for sale.”
