Van Halen’s classic hit ‘Panama’ is actually about an American car

Classic rock fans may be familiar with the 1984 Van Halen hit ‘Panama’ – but you might not know that the inspiration behind it was a ‘fast car’.

‘Panama’ was the third single from the US rock band’s album 1984. 

It hit number 13 on the US Billboard Hot 100 but made it all the way to number two on the US Mainstream Rock chart. 

Despite its name, the song is not inspired by the country and was actually written about a car. 

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Van Halen’s ‘Panama’ was inspired by a Las Vegas car

There are plenty of songwriters who love cars enough to pen songs about them – such as ‘Little Red Corvette’, by Prince, which was actually inspired by a 1964 Mercury Montclair.

However, until the early 1980s, Van Halen’s lead singer David Lee Roth wasn’t one of them.

Roth didn’t feel the need to write about a car until a journalist accused Van Halen of only singing about ‘women, partying and fast cars’, prompting him to realize that he had, in fact, never written a song about the latter. 

In an interview with Howard Stern, Roth revealed that he was inspired to write the track after seeing a car called the ‘Panama Express’ take part in a race in Las Vegas.

He decided to prove the journalist right, and the rest is rock music history. 

A 1972 Lamborghini Miura S features on the song

Although we know the song is inspired by a car, Roth has never revealed what make and model Panama Express was.

However, we do know it’s not the heavily customized 1951 Mercedes Eight that appeared in the song’s music video. 

Nor is it the car that you can actually hear revving its engine in the song. 

The car’s engine can be heard during the middle of the song, in the background as Roth sings, ‘I can barely feel the road from the heat comin’ off…’

That car is a 1972 Lamborghini Miura S that belonged to the late guitarist Eddie Van Halen. 

To perfectly capture the sound, music producer Ted Templeton attached some microphones to the Lamborghini’s exhaust pipe and asked Van Halen to back the car up while they recorded the sound of the engine.

“They thought we were nuts to pull up my Lamborghini to the studio and mic it,” Van Halen told Guitar World.

“We drove it around the city, and I revved the engine up to 80,000rpm just to get the right sound.”