Germany’s Metal Hammer celebrates Brian Johnson’s life as AC/DC’s lead singer, author, racer, and one of the Car Guys Who Lunch in Sarasota, FL.
For decades, heavy metal music publications worldwide have devoted barrels of ink and forests of trees covering AC/DC and Brian Johnson. So it’s nothing new to see AC/DC’s lead singer the focus of a Metal Hammer cover story. What makes the July 2011 issue unusual is that a lot of space is devoted to coverage of Brian the racer and his 1928 Bentley at a Sarasota Café Racers lunch. I worked with editor, Jakob Kranz, to supply the car guy photos.
Brian is on the cover along with Angus Young, AC/DC co-founder and lead guitarist, right. At age 63 Brian shows no signs of slowing down and this weekend drove his recently acquired Lola T-70 Spyder, a vintage 1965 Cobra-powered racecar that competed in USRRC competition in the mid-to-late 1960s, Stephan Cooper Photo, above.
Editor Kranz devoted a full page, left, to Brian's car guy activities in Sarasota, FL and on racetracks in the U.S. The feature was done before he purchased the Lola T-70, so it is not pictured. His best selling book, Rockers and Rollers, published in the UK and here, is also featured.
Driven by high-profile racers like Ronnie Bucknam back in the day, the T-70 Spyder has been restored and race-prepped by Predator Performance, Largo, FL, Stuart Schorr Photo, Lola with Brian and wife, Brenda, below. Finished in its original blue and white livery and number (12), it is a seriously fast racecar. Johnson finished 8th in a field of 46 1960-1968 Sports Racing USRRC Cars on Saturday.
“This was my first time at the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion and Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca,” said the 63-year-rocker. “I’m going to come here for the rest of my life, and that’s a promise.“