1979 New Wave Classic Ranked Among the 'Best Road-Trip Songs of All Time' Was Written in 10 Minutes
In 1979, Gary Numan released his first solo album-and his only U.S. Top 10 hit, with the song "Cars." The new wave classic from Numan's debut studio album, The Pleasure Principle, peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 by the following summer.
Rolling Stone ranked "Cars" one of the best road trip songs of all time, describing it as "an industrial-age manifesto."
"The car is not a symbol of freedom, the car is not a symbol of good times, the car is just an extension of yourself. So why would Gary Numan ever leave it?" the music outlet asked, adding that "over half of this pioneering synth-pop song is an instrumental outro, just to give you some extra time to mind-meld with your dashboard."
Gary Numan's song was inspired after a road rage incident
Numan once revealed that his hit song was inspired by a real-life road rage incident. In an interview with Professor of Rock, he recalled, "I was driving along, and some people in front were obviously really upset with me. … I must have done something and not realized, you know, back up the road somewhere and upset them in some way. They got out of their car, and they're screaming and shouting at me, and then they're trying to open my door and unlock all my doors. And I stay in the car, they're trying to break in, and I thought, 'There's no way I'm getting out of this.'"
Numan revealed that he ended up "driving up onto the pavement" to get away from the road ragers. He equated the safety of his car to "a little mini tank for the civilian."
"When you're in it, you're separate from the world," he said. "You're safe. You can lock yourself in. You can drive away. You can get away from problems. You know, it's just a fantastically comforting thing. And that's where the song came from."
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The structure of the song was written in 10 minutes
In the interview, Numan noted that "Cars" is one of only two songs he ever wrote on a bass guitar. "The song basically wrote itself," he added of the hit single.
Numan elaborated to Billboard, revealing that the first four notes he ever played on his new guitar became the opening chords to "Cars."
"I took it out of the case, I put it on my lap, and I played [the first four notes of 'Cars']," he said. "And I thought, 'Oh, that sounds all right.' The very first thing! The very first four notes that I played when I picked the thing up, having not been a bass player, was f---ing 'Cars'!" There is no way you can put that down to any kind of talent. That is just as lucky as you can get! It took me 10 minutes to write that entire song, all the parts for it."
Numan spent a little more time putting the music to lyrics, but all in all, it was the fastest song he ever wrote. "It's the quickest song I ever wrote, and I'm still learning ridiculously well from it today, 40 years later," Numan said in the 2019 interview. "That's luck!"
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This story was originally published April 17, 2026 at 2:38 AM.