Walk onto the show field at the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance and you’re walking into a sort of rogues’ gallery of motorsports personalities. In 2018, for example, strolling between the Ed Roth cars and Emerson Fittipaldi racing machinery, I spied David Hobbs, Jochen Mass, Derek Bell and ... hey, waitaminute, is that John Oates?!
It was, in fact, John Oates. Yes, that John Oates—one half of the most successful (and still touring!) duo in rock history. He was there serving as a judge.
This year Oates returned with a vengeance: He curated a special “Cars of the Rock Stars” class, wherein his recently completed Rod Emory-built 1960 Porsche 356 Outlaw and rare 1959 MG MGA Twin Cam would be parked next to Brian Johnson’s 1928 Bentley Vanden Plas “Thunder Guts,” a 1958 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham that once belonged to Ricky Nelson, and others, all paired with guitars. Icing on the cake: Oates opened the ceremonies with an a cappella rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Why do we care that rock stars love cars? Perhaps we all like to know that, while we may lack wealth or any real marketable artistic talent, we share at least one thing in common with these guys. In any case, we caught up with Oates ahead of the big show and learned a little bit about his new Outlaw, why he doesn’t maintain a true car collection, and how, for one brief moment, he and Daryl Hall ended up hawking Pontiac Fieros.
Questions and responses have been edited for clarity (and to make me seem like a halfway competent interviewer.)
Autoweek: This isn’t your first time at Amelia. How’d you get involved?
John Oates: It’s the second year I’ve been here, and this is the first year I’ve actually been a part of creating an event, being involved with the show. (Amelia Island Concours director of communications) Chris Brewer came up with the idea of pairing vintage cars with vintage guitars. He asked me if I wanted to collaborate with him and curate the event; I jumped on board because I thought it was an amazing idea.
AW: The easy, obvious question: Were you into cars before you achieved success, or was it one of those things you picked up once you could get whatever you wanted?
JO: Well, both. I was into cars before I achieved success, but I couldn’t buy them. So the success brought along that aspect—I could actually buy a few, I started racing and all that. But I really started as a kid. I had a cool modified Corvair in the ’60s. My first real sports car was an MGB, and then I bought an Alfa Spider in the early ’70s. And then my first major car was a ’77 Porsche Turbo Carrera, a 930—an early one, right when they first came to America.
I had a collection of cars in the ’80s, had some really nice cars: I had a 356 Speedster, an E-Type Jag, an Austin-Healey 3000, and so on and so forth.
AW: Do you still have a pretty decent-size collection, or did you get tired of taking care of them?
JO: Actually, I have no collection at all: With my lifestyle, I’m always traveling—I have no time to keep up a collection. But I have two really great cars that I enjoy taking out on the weekends and driving: the Emory Outlaw Special 356 and a ’59 MGA Twin Cam.
AW: Let’s back up a bit—you said you did a little racing back in the day?
JO: Yeah, I started racing in the late ’70s with go-karts, Formula Fords and SCCA racing, and then I moved into the Sports 2000 Pro series that the SCCA was running ... I eventually went into IMSA and ran some GTU races in Porsche 924 GTR, a Pontiac Fiero ... did a bunch of races that way. But I had an accident at Elkhart Lake (Road America) in the mid-’80s and decided to hang it up.
AW: Did you have a pretty clear vision in mind when it came to your Porsche? How did you know you wanted to go with Rod Emory for the build?
JO: I had my 70th birthday coming up, and I realize that it coincided with the Porsche 70th anniversary. I thought it’d be kinda cool to treat myself. You know, I have things like custom guitars, I built a custom house, I have custom suits, and I thought: Why not a custom car? Being a Porsche lover, and having sold my Speedster back in the ’80s, that was one car I always had a certain fondness for, so I started going about finding the right 356.
Well, I found out about Rod Emory, and when I had a show in LA I called him up, went to his shop and saw what he did, and fell in love with him and his procedure. I saw how he was taking these cars and artistically transforming them and said, OK, this is what I want to do.
AW: How much did you feed him as far as what you wanted, what you were looking for? Did you give him a vague outline and tell him to do his thing, or was it a back-and-forth?
JO: To start, I told him the story about my Speedster and how I regretted selling it years ago. I didn’t want to just re-create that particular Speedster, but I wanted a convertible, I knew it was going to be a 356 and I wanted it to be geared more toward the performance side of things rather than comfort. (Emory) found a wrecked 356 Cabriolet in a barn in Texas, called me up and said, “John, I think I found the car that’d be the perfect place to start.” I bought it, it got shipped to his shop and the process began.
To make a long story short, I told him I’d like to incorporate what I consider to be the best qualities of the 356 model as it evolved through the years, from the pre-A all the way up through the SC cars of the ’60s. Why not pick the best of the best? For instance, this car is a B cabriolet, but it has an A nose. It has a removable hardtop that Emory chopped and made it look almost like a coupe roof. It’s got Roadster door pockets, GT-style windows, his four-cam engine—it’s kind of Emory’s version of the Carrera engine—and Speedster seats, even though it’s a Cabriolet.
So what I did was took all the things I like and put ’em together. It’s kind of the best of all worlds.
AW: And the plan is to put some serious miles on it, now that it’s done.
JO: Well, Emory got it cosmetically ready for Rennsport, and we debuted it there. I drove it a little bit in Nashville over the fall, put about 400 miles on it. Rod had some new upgrades and updates ready for it, so I sent it back to his shop; over the winter, he put new ventilated four-piston brakes on it, new 911-based rack-and-pinion steering, new shocks ... he’s does a number of things. Now it’s really dialed in.
Gallery: John Oates' cars at the 2019 Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance
AW: That brings us back to this weekend. What was it about about Amelia Island that made you want to step in?
JO: I really love the vibe of this show. Obviously the charitable aspect is huge for me, and (founder and chairman) Bill Warner is such a wonderful, charismatic individual. And I love the fact that it’s all centered in one place, unlike Pebble Beach and Monterey Car Week where you’ve got to drive everywhere and everything is so spread out. It’s much more fan-friendly, so to speak.
AW: One more thing. In the ’80s you and Daryl Hall were tied up in a sponsorship deal with Pontiac for the Fiero (this included a concert tour and even an LP release). Looking back, those ads somehow seem like a perfect snapshot of that whole time. How did that come about?
JO: It was a business decision; you know, back in that era, there were a lot of corporate sponsorships for rock concerts—it became the in thing to do. We connected with Pontiac, who wanted to debut the Fiero and give it a youthful feel. We were hot at that moment (this was 1984, between the duo’s release of “H20” and “Big Bam Boom,” making that something of an understatement). So, we made the deal, and I actually ended up driving in a Bob Earl-prepped Fiero at two IMSA races.
AW: Thanks for your time. Enjoy the show!
With that, Oates was gone, no doubt off to perform some concoursly duties. He said not to necessarily expect the “Cars of the Rock Stars” class to be a yearly affair at the Amelia—that might make it feel a little less special—but don’t be surprised if you see him on the concours field again in the future. And keep an eye out for his Speedster or MGA on the roads around Nashville.
You’re welcome for the lack of Hall & Oates puns.
