Hot Rods: ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons’ Car Collection
Iconic musician is responsible for the most recognizable hot rod on the planet and the renaissance that kept the automotive form alive into this century.
Billy Gibbons, singer, guitarist, and band leader of ZZ Top, is an icon in his own right as one of the best blues rock guitarists in the business. Gibbons signature beard was grown at the same time as bassist Dusty Hill grew his while the band was on a 2-year hiatus at the end of the 1970s. Curiously, the only member of the band without the iconic ZZ Top chest-length beard is the drummer, Frank Beard. Although ZZ Top gained national and international fame with the record Eliminator in 1983 and carried that pop style of driving rock blues for another two records, it’s only a brief period of the band’s life. ZZ Top originally formed in 1969 as a boogie rock band, but it was a makeover for the band and having the right formula at the right time and then pulling it off perfectly that shot them onto the rock and roll big time.
That new formula for ZZ Top was catchy driving blues rock with a pop sensibility and promotional videos that matched the music’s subjects of attractive women and fast cars timed perfectly for the freshly minted MTV generation. Hot rods and driving have always been a consistent theme for ZZ Top’s music and it was hot rods that featured heavily in their success. Both the album cover for 1983’s Eliminator album as well as videos including Gimme All Your Lovin’ and Sharp Dressed Man feature the most famous ZZ Top car. The eponymously named Eliminator hot rod.
Like the Eliminator album is to ZZ Top, the Eliminator hot rod is just the tip of the iceberg that is Gibbons car collection. And like ZZ Top itself, the Eliminator car is not just a show-piece. It’s no fibre-glass replica, but a true steel 1933 Ford with an SBC 350 V8 built by So-Cal Speed Shop built with a single four-barrel carburetor. Its style was inspired by hero car from the 1974 movie The California Kid, and Gibbons used Pete Chapouris, the man behind The California Kid Ford, to help conceive the car on paper. Eliminator has a Ford 9-inch rear-end and 4-bar front suspension on a custom built chassis by Buffalo Motor Cars. Eliminator features a custom 3-piece hood, 1934 Ford headlights, teardrop tail lights from a 1939 Ford, and a 3-inch chop off the top and the custom ZZ Top graphics.
Through the height of ZZ Top’s mainstream success, Eliminator spent most of its time being used for videos, album covers, and live promotional events. It wasn’t until the late 1980s when Gibbons got to stretch its legs and took a cross-country trip from L.A To New York with two passengers. In true rock and roll style, one of the passengers was one of the girls featured in the music videos. According to Gibbons, Eliminator covered the distance without a hitch and was plenty fast enough to cruise past traffic on the inside lanes.
Eliminator is just one of Gibbons famous hot rods. Another true icon of the hot rod community is a piece of automotive art known as CadZZilla. It may have Billy Gibbons name behind it, but he isn’t the only reason CadZZilla is so well known. It’s not just the smooth style of the build that marks it as an icon either. The quality is truly up in the high end having been built by the late and great automotive visionary and innovator, Boyd Coddington. CadZZilla is based on the rare 1948 Series 62 Cadillac, and it was originally conceived as a straightforward build consisting of just putting the 62 Caddilac on a new frame so it could take a big engine and a modern suspension setup. As we know though, Gibbons is a stylish man but also not a subtle one. He wanted it more in tune with his personality and style and the result is a true statement.
The highlights of the sleek retro-futuristic style start with the custom roofline. It’s not just a chop, but a whole new roof that required custom-made glass to go with it. The oversized suicide doors are button operated and both the hood and fenders are sectioned to sit lower. They’re also combined together so the hood and fenders tilt open together for easy access to the engine. The rear quarter is lowered and blended with custom tapering running down the sides and the whole thing is finished off in a deep purple. The rear 22″ wheels are fully skirted and the fronts are two-piece billet 22″ aluminum wheels made in the style of classic Cadillac dish covers. Whereas Eliminator looks very much of its time, CadZZilla was born in the 1980’s but looks like something that could have come from a contemporary designer twenty or thirty years later.
Underneath, it sits on a custom frame fitted with a Curry 9″ rear end and Koni coilovers. The engine is a 500 cubic-inch Cadillac V8 fitted with a Holley fuel injection system and custom headers. Like Eliminator, CadZZilla isn’t a car that’s purely wheeled out for shows. Gibbons has run it out on road trips, including one cross country to the Ohio Hot Rod Super Nationals and a trip up the Goodwood hillclimb in 2010.
Gibbons is known for not selling any of his cars and he keeps building them and putting them in music videos. More recently, and along with ZZ Top’s return to a rawer guitar based sound without the synthesizers, Gibbons has shown he likes a good rat rod. Or, in the case of the music video for Gotsa Get Paid, three rat rods with two of them driven by attractive women.
The song itself is as much of a customization of existing music as the cars. It’s a re-working of a 1990’s hip-hop track that got stuck in Gibbon’s head after the opening line “I got 25 lighters on my dresser, yessir, I gotsa get paid,” stuck in his head. The reworking is classic ZZ Top and so is the video. The cars are all built by So-Cal Speedshop, including Gibbon’s own car he’s driving called Whiskey Runner. It’s based on a ‘1934 Ford 3-window coupe and Gibbons describes it as, “The bad little sister of the Eliminator coupe.”
Other Fords include a 1950 Business Coup known as Koperhead, the 1958 Thunderbird called Mexican Blackbird in the picture at the top of page, a 1936 Ford truck rat rod.
Gibbons claims his first words were Ford, Chevrolet, and Cadillac. So, it’s no surprise he does have a cool Chevy in his stable of hot rods. The Chevrolet above is an Impala from 1962 called Slampala, and shows Gibbons more casual side when it comes to automobile modification. Slampala is on air suspension and came together while Gibbons paid SoCal Speedshop a visit telling them it, “Needs an extra something.” That extra something was created quickly with a cutting torch, a hammer, and some paint. According to gibbons, Slampala was back on the road as soon as the paint dried.
The bond between Billy Gibbons, music and hot rods is heavily intertwined. It’s clear that Gibbons is of a man that lives for the things he loves. He doesn’t need much of an excuse to show up and play guitar with the legion of musicians that respect him as one of the best blues rock guitarists on the planet and, even though Gibbons is past retirement age, ZZ Top hasn’t split up and he’s still looking for cars to buy and turn into pieces of rolling art. He’s the perfect example of a sharp dressed man that stays young by keeping his passion lit to keep doing what he loves.
