Ozzy Osbourne liked his cars. “I was going down a motorway in England, it’s very early in the morning, sometime in the 1970s,” he said last year. “I had an [Jaguar] XJ12 with two tanks in it. When one tank went empty, I just clicked the other one...[and it was like] an aeroplane.
“I was going about 130mph (209kph) and I suddenly got this thought in my head: ‘If you get a ****ing blowout now, you’re ****ing over.’” Not one to mince his words was Ozzy.
As you’ve no doubt read by now, the Prince of Darkness has died. He was 76. One of England’s most famous sons, he was responsible not just for pioneering heavy metal and churning out a catalogue of hits, but he and Black Sabbath were also responsible for influencing countless others. Had a fondness for bats, too.
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Speaking on his show last year, Ozzy revealed snippets of his car history. His first was a Triumph Herald, after which he graduated into a Range Rover, then into the big league with a brand-new Mercedes 280 SE. “Beautiful,” he said of the classic Benz.
However, that car was a plague. “First of all, my ex-wife pranged it taking the kids to school after only three weeks of owning it,” he said. “Then it went to be fixed, and while it was waiting to go and be fixed, somebody broke in and stole the stereo.
“Then somebody put bricks under it and sold the wheels.” He got rid of it soon after.
He also had an Audi R8 and a Ferrari 458, which he crashed in LA. He also had a Ferrari California...not that he realised at the time. “I didn’t know what the ****ing car was called,” he said. “The guy at the showroom said to me, ‘What do you think of the California?’
“I said, ‘The weather’s ****ing great.’” Oh, Ozzy.
So yes, Ozzy Osbourne liked his cars. And while his motoring back catalog is littered with stone-cold classics, we found this picture of Ozzy as a young man in his prime: standing outside an old cottage in front of a Volvo 240 wagon. RIP, big man.
NOTE: This story first appeared on TopGear.com. Minor edits have been made.
