Billy Joel Never Bought That Cadillac-Ac-Ac-Ac, But His Actual Collection Is Pretty Unusual

I don’t mean to imply that this article is an excuse to share that meme of the Cadillac sign flickering with Billy Joel singing “Cadilac-ac-ac-ac” from “Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)” overtop. I mean to say that explicitly. That meme is perfection. 

Oh, also there’s a rumor that Joel owns a 1959 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz thanks to a blog from Octagon Insurance, which likewise claims Joel owns a Porsche 911 Turbo, a Lexus LS 600hL, a Range Rover, and a Ford Model A. While it’s an awesome “What Should Be In Your Five-Car Garage” argument, I couldn’t find corroborating sources. 

So I emailed the woman who’s been Joel’s publicist for the longest time, Claire Mercuri, to ask if it was accurate. She responded, “I checked with Billy, and he said: Most of this article is incorrect. He never owned a 1959 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz. Thanks for fact-checking, Paul.” I kid-squealed, knowing that I was directly responsible for someone rousting Billy Joel out of his well-deserved respite just to ask him about his car collection. Then I looked into the actual cars he owns.

(On a sad note, Joel suffers from a brain disorder called normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH), which forced the closure of Billy Joel’s 20th Century Cycles. Thankfully, NPH is reversible when caught early and Joel’s daughter, Alexa Ray Joel, told USA Today he’s “sharp as a tack.”)

Now, I didn’t hound Joel’s publicist further because he should be left in peace, but as far as I can tell, he still has his beautiful hunter green 1962 Jaguar Mark II. In a video on Discovery Turbo Latinamerica’s YouTube channel (seen above), Alex Puls, the manager of 20th Century Cycles, goes over the sound system upgrade Will Castro and his team were installing. It’s a fascinating dive into this Jaguar’s innards and how people go about modernizing classic cars, as long as you don’t mind listening to the most stilted AI translation ever.

When Joel was on “Jay Leno’s Garage,” he showed off the Jaguar, and they took it for a ride. Perhaps Leno was starstruck and wanted to ask about Joel’s life or the CNBC editor was asked to use certain clips, but the only 30 seconds on YouTube of the two in the car features no conversation about the Jaguar they were in.

So we’ll talk about it. Jaguar Mark IIs are soulmates with the stupendous E28 BMW M5. Just as the first M5 sedan shared its engine with the M1 sports car, the Jaguar Mark II shared its engine with the E-Type (for the most part). In E-Types, the 3.8 had three SU carbs and made 265 hp, while the Mark II had two SU carbs and made 220 hp. That horsepower, and complementing 240 pound-feet of torque, was still plenty of oomph to get the Mark II up to 126 mph.

As long as we’re talking about rumors, there’s a persistent one that the Audi Fox inspired Ford to create the “Fox” platform on which the Fairmont and Mustang rode. But, like the fact that two different comic strips called Dennis the Menace debuted the same day in 1951, it’s just a coincidence. As for why Billy Joel bought an Audi Fox, he told Jay Leno, “I thought it was, like, a foreign car, you know? I thought it was a sexy little car, and it was easy to drive.” 

And why did Joel buy a 1973 model? Well, that was the year “Piano Man” came out and he was actually starting to make money in music. 1971’s “Cold Spring Harbor” was a massive flop and there’s no way 1970’s “Attila” made him any money (Joel’s band Attila actually rocks, by the way, and you can listen to the whole album on YouTube).

The Fox (or the 80 as it was known in Europe) is more important than its status as a trivia footnote, though, because you can squarely thank it for every water-cooled, front-engined, front-wheel drive car that Audi parent company Volkswagen produced afterward. Also, Billy Joel was right, it was a sexy little car. We think the Audi 80/Fox is one of the best looking Audis ever produced. And Car and Driver gushed over it when reviewing a GTI version of the car in 1978, writing, “Five years later, it’s still ahead of its time.” 

Like his Audi Fox, Billy Joel’s Volkswagen Beetle is a 1973 model. However, this was a much later purchase than the Audi. In 2008, Joel was in Des Moines, Iowa to perform a concert. While he was sightseeing, he popped into American Dream Machines, a vintage car dealer. He left with a Beetle. Old Cars Weekly reported that according to the dealer’s owner, Doug Klein, Joel “just wanted a cool ol’ bug to go down to the beach.” And, because Billy Joel rules, he gave Klein and his staff eight tickets to the concert.

In case you’re unfamiliar with the longest-produced car in history, Beetles were once as big a deal as The Beatles. By 1973, over 17 million had been crafted, outselling even the Ford Model T. As for distinctive features of the ’73 models, the wheel spats of vintage Volkswagen Beetles were long gone, as were the split and oval rear windows. The windshield opening was made larger in ’73, so that’s a plus. 

1971 was the year the mild-mannered, glasses-wearing Beetle transformed into the Super Beetle, defender of truth, justice, and the economical way. The front suspension was redesigned to enlarge the front trunk. Displacement increased to 1,600 cubic centimeters in 1970, and heads gained three valves per cylinder in ’71, upping horsepower to a stonking 60. Hardly a Hellcat (maybe a Hellcat starter motor), but it was better than the 40 hp Beetles had in 1963, 10 years before Joel’s car was built.

The Citroën Deux Chevaux deserves to be on a Mount Rushmore of cute cars alongside the Volkswagen Beetle, Austin Mini, and Dodge Neon. Apparently, Billy Joel agrees, because he bought one in 1990 for his then-wife, Christie Brinkley. Is it a step down from the Ferrari 308 she drove in “National Lampoon’s Vacation”? That depends on your perspective.

Over its production, 2CV flat-twins displaced between 375 ccs and 602 ccs and made anywhere from 9 hp to a zero-turn-mower-rivaling 33 hp. Supposedly an electric Citroën 2CV revival is coming in the near future, too.

GQ says Joel crashed it in 2004 during a run to get pizza. Evidently it was repaired, because it sold on Bring a Trailer this July for $21,500. Or did it? The listing says, “This 1967 Citroen 2CV has spent the last 29 years in the care of its current owner, and it was purchased in the mid-1990s from model and entrepreneur Christie Brinkley.” Not saying the Bring a Trailer listing is untrue or GQ is wrong, just that timelines are odd.

If you were expecting a bunch of puns and references to Billy Joel songs in this article, sorry, but I don’t need to do that to feel like a Big Shot. I think Honesty is the best policy in My Life. Don’t Ask Me Why, but I just feel Pressure while writing these articles because I Go To Extremes, staying awake … in the middle of the night.