OTTAWA — He had fun, fun, fun till the museum took his T-bird away.
Rock-music icon Randy Bachman has donated his 1965 Thunderbird to Canada’s national science museum.
Bachman, a lead guitarist who gained fame as a founder of the Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive, bought the car from his Guess Who collaborator, Burton Cummings — giving the vintage wheels a double musical pedigree.
“Burton Cummings drove this car around L.A. for many years,” Bachman wrote in an email to The Canadian Press. “Every time he’d drive me somewhere, I’d ogle at the car and tell him that if he ever wanted to sell it, he should call me ...
“Fast forward to 2003, we’re touring with the Guess Who when he offered me the car, and I bought it.”
The sleek status symbol from the rockin’ 1960s is in mint condition. With its powerful V8 engine, a growling T-bird can make “the Indy 500 look like a Roman chariot race,” as the Beach Boys famously sang in their 1964 hit Fun, Fun, Fun.
The jet-black speedster, which joined the science collection in January, has its own curious place in Canadian music history, apart from its famous pop-star owners.
For years, a demo tape of a 1987 Bachman-Cummings recording session in White Rock, B.C., was lost somewhere in the trunk. Rediscovered during a restoration seven years ago, the rare digital recordings of 10 lost songs were eventually turned into a CD entitled — what else? — the Thunderbird Trax.
Bachman long ago donated his extensive musical archives to Library and Archives Canada and learned from officials of an interest in the car.
“I heard through them that the museum of science and technology was looking for the ’ultimate Canadian rock ’n’ roll car’ and I thought of the Thunderbird, so I offered it to them,” Bachman said in his email.
“I still travel a lot playing rock festivals and gigs, plus we have homes in Salt Spring Island, London, and Santa Monica, so there’s no time to enjoy driving these days.”
The 1965 T-bird is the fourth generation of the best-selling roadster, and the first model equipped with standard front-wheel disc brakes.
It’s currently sitting in a dark corner of a museum warehouse in Ottawa, under a tarp and getting some minor touch-ups after its long journey by truck from Bachman’s home on Salt Spring Island, B.C.
But museum officials are planning a splashy event with Bachman showing off his hot wheels, though details have not yet been worked out.
“It’s beautiful, pretty damn cool,” said Luc Fournier, an official with the Canada Science and Technology Museum. “It looks great... Other than a good wash, the car is in great shape.”
The Thunderbird’s model year also happens to the same year the Winnipeg-based Guess Who first acquired their catchy name, and scored their first breakaway hit, Shakin’ All Over.
But it was Bachman’s second supergroup, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, that really churned out motor-themed hits, such as Roll on Down the Highway and Four Wheel Drive.
The T-bird is not the first Bachman ever owned — he had a 1961 model “but it was very low to the ground and during the winters in Winnipeg, it would turn into a toboggan on snowy, hilly streets so I sold it.”
“I used to have a ’54 Rolls Royce Silver Dawn, and it was similar to the T-bird. I could only drive it on short round trips because unfortunately there were jerks everywhere, who would run their keys down the side of nice cars scratching the whole thing. I couldn’t park it anywhere.”
Bachman continues in the public spotlight, with his popular CBC Radio show, Vinyl Tap.