Name: David Clayton-Thomas
Famous for: Juno Award-winning musician, soloist and songwriter, and former lead singer of Grammy Award-winning band Blood, Sweat & Tears, Clayton-Thomas was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1996.
His car: A 2009 European Edition Audi A8 Sport in Black Cherry.
Why he loves it: It looks black, but when the sun hits it, it has a burgundy undertone. It has the Bang and Olufson stereo, and I wanted that. It’s got a few more horses. The chips are a little bit hotter. And it comes with bigger, 19-inch wheels. The Audi has all the luxury of the Porsche, but you can really feel the BMW. It has that sport handling, snappy, punchy.
His life in cars: I can almost document my life by what I was driving at the time. My California years with my Mercedes 300 SL Roadster, my Toronto years in the ’70s were my Porsche years, my New York years in the ’80s were my BMW years — mostly M series BMWs, M6s, M3s, M5s — and now back in Canada in the 2000’s are my Audi years.
A car story worth telling: When I moved to San Francisco in ’71, I bought the Mercedes. It was an absolute monster of a car. I found it in a wreckers yard. Just an abused old queen covered in spider webs and dust. I flat-bedded it down to L.A. and had it totally restored. It was very much a California car. So when I moved back to the east coast in ’75, I sold it to Steve McQueen. I paid $5,000 for that car. I put $8,000 into restoring it. I sold it to Steve for $35,000. Thirty years later, I found the car again … It had certain signatures in the restoration that I had done that I recognized. They were asking $300,000.
Why he’s a car guy: Being a chronic gearhead, you no sooner get a car and you want something else, the next best. In my business, you’re really surrounded by people a lot. And a car has always meant nobody can touch you out there. That’s what it’s always been to me, especially in the heyday of Blood, Sweat & Tears, we were living in a hurricane of press. Getting in that little Porsche and getting out on the highway, nobody could touch you out there. It’s a nice way to escape.
• David Clayton-Thomas’ book, Blood, Sweat & Tears: The David Clayton-Thomas Story, will be released in fall.
– Heather Buchan is a Toronto-based journalist who has worked at Homemakers, Canadian Living, Canadian House & Home and, most recently, Hello! Canada, where she cut her teeth in the world of celebrities.
