This weekend’s CarTune is the Beach Boys’ tribute to Craig Breedlove, “Spirit of America,” with a video featuring some great old Bonneville footage.
Brian Wilson wrote “Spirit of America” with Southern California disc jockey and songwriter Roger Christian, who often collaborated with the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean on car-themed songs, sharing writing credits on both “Little Deuce Coupe” and “Dead Man’s Curve.” Christian was the go-to car song guy on the LA music scene. However, the lyrics to “Spirit” are strictly rote:
The Spirit of America, the name on the side
The man who would drive her Craig Breedlove by name
A daring young man played a dangerous game
Eye-rolling stuff. But it’s ok, because we’re still treated to some great Beach Boys doo-wop harmonies. And in this case. we also see some wonderful film of Breedlove on the salt in August of 1963, running 407.45 mph (“four-oh-seven per hour” in the song) to set the absolute land speed record.
By traditional standards, Breedlove’s record was problematic—Spirit was neither four-wheeled nor wheel-driven—but to young gearheads across America it was a record all the same.
Love the tune even though, living in Akron, Ohio, I was an Art Arfons fan during the great land speed record wars of the sixties.
As a tot reading the car magazines, I just sort of assumed that every year there would be epic battles on the salt for the LSR. I didn’t know we were witnessing an incredible, unique series of events.
It was a fantastic time to be young…JFK, the space program, the Peace Corps, Martin Luther King Jr. on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Craig Breedlove the All-American Boy with his jet fighter on wheels he built in his yard. It seemed like anything was possible, barriers falling all around. Then JFK was assassinated and two years later I was shipping off to ‘Nam. Things went straight to shit in a hurry.