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Price: US $9,000.00

Description:

The Owsley Stanley - 1965 Original Grateful Dead The Dred LSD Truck 1949 Studebaker 1 Ton R series Truck.
It is very rare in todays collecting world that a music celebrity-owned, iconic and culturally important automobile just shows up after 45 years, especially one that represents a frozen moment in time that references the the nostalgic Summer of Love of 1966, the early Grateful Dead rock band, Owsley, LSD, Rock n Roll music and Psychedelic 1960's automotive Art Cars. .. and all of this is being offered on the 50th Anniversary of the Grateful Dead first gig in 1965!
With major celebrations of the Dead and it's fans is happening this year, with the Martin Scorsese documentary and the long awaited re-uniting of the band for a run of shows.
With all this Grateful Dead celebration going on this year, you can imagine what the commercial ownership of this historic vehicle can bring to the right collector willing to loan this vehicle for exhibitions, marketing or display it in a public space celebrating the Grateful Dead band and music.
Perhaps a holy grail of any rock & roll / car collection or certainly the largest piece of Grateful Dead memorabilia is in this culturally historic automobile, known as The Dred. This piece of automotive and Rock n Roll culture assumes a high degree of historic reference, relevance and romance, not found in most vintage collector vehicles of any price. To put this vehicle in context, it seems comparable in counter-culture stature only to iconic 1960s Social Art vehicles such as Janis Joplin's 1965 Porsche, John Lennon's painted 60s Rolls Royce and of course, Ken Kesey's 60s Merry Pranksters bus, also known as Further.
The Grateful Dead's recently discovered first band truck from 1966 is a very important collector vehicle from the Mid Century era with lots of public appeal. It is an automotive representation of a historical time, complete with the key players of the counterculture revolution. Originally purchased by Owsley Stanley in 1966 to move The Grateful Dead's band equipment, Owsley (known as the father of LSD) was also The Dead's first manager and original sound-man. This infamous automobile was Owsley developed, along with the drug LSD and the notorious Wall-of-Sound audio equipment for The Dead. The Studebaker truck became the first of The Grateful Dead's early Caravan of Six band vehicles, which included The Dead's original Sweet Magnolia tour bus. Dead Heads may also remember the lyric from the song Truckin: ...what a long, strange trip it's been... and fondly link it to The Dred.
Along with recently published information, Owsley himself has stated that this was his red 1949 one-ton Studebaker truck and wass officially known in the Bay Area and in Dead circles as The Dred or the Dreded Dormammu. Named by Owsley after a Marvel Comic book character, and documented in Rolling Stone Magazine, this truck was used by him and The Dead to move their audio gear to local gigs. As Owsley has stated, it was also used to move The Dead's audio gear to L.A. in 1966 for their first L.A. recording dates, as well as for an appearance at the Acid Tests held in the suburb of Watts.
Before Owsley's imprisonment in 1970 on charges of manufacturing LSD, the truck was given by Owsley to an artist friend in Berkeley. His friend applied the current, original psychedelic style paint job partially over the Owsley commissioned red paint job. The car was then entered into the first Cosmic Car Show in Berkeley, California in 1970. The paint job retains the original early art car paint design, which visually identifies it as an original artifact of the rolling revolution of the 1960s Summer of Love generation.
Stored for decades, it has remained in the possession of Owsley's friend from 1970 until 2012. It was then discovered hidden in a barn in non-running but complete condition and in a wonderfully preserved visual state. Fully documented by the previous owners, including Owsley Stanley (aka Bear), this iconic truck and it's multiple original connections to mid-century cultural history present an extremely rare opportunity for important vehicle ownership.
Here is a link to a 1980's article on Owsley, that describes the truck in detail.
here
A summary of complete provenance is available to serious bidders, documenting the direct legal ownership for the last 50 years, from 1965 to today. Please email me for any additional information.
A summary of complete provenance is available to serious bidders, documenting the direct legal ownership for the last 50 years, from 1965 to today. Please email me for any additional information. There is a very reasonable low reserve on this object. considering the most valuable Grateful dead posters are in the $10, 000 to $20, 000 range, this offering is very, very fair and a bargain for a smart collector looking for an ultimate and historic one-of-a-kind Grateful Dead object.
the truck appears to be all original with the correct factory interior including the steering wheel and gauge cluster.
original red painted 17 inch wheels.
door latch is broken, as described in the recent Owsley publication, Owsley and Me.
the running gear is complete and it could, of course, be put in running condition.
does not run at the present. it has been parked for well over a decade. however, it does roll...
door glass on drivers side is plastic.
truck bed has rust thru in spots, other rust spots on body.
original red color that Owsley used, and as described in the recent Owsley publication, Owsley and Me and also in the Sept 25th 1982 Rolling Stone Magazine- Owsley issue, is still visible as the red base color for the rattle-can spray paint job applied in 1969/1970 by William Clark.
FREE BONUS! great tool for fundraising or advertising, it comes with the website and the domain name: www.gratefuldeadtruck.com
Also included are several videos completely documenting the past 50 year ownership and the Owsley - Grateful Dead connections.
yes, the Dred comes with its two original black and yellow California license plates...
Link to a youtube video of the Dred:
here
The Grateful Dead‘s “core four” began their Fare Thee Well concerts on Friday in a fitting way, with the biographical “Truckin’” – featuring the timeless lyric, “what a long, strange trip it’s been.” Ultimately, that would be the most recent song the Grateful Dead performed, during an evening that focused on early, well-known favorites. In fact, the only rarity was “What’s Become of the Baby, ” though that also dated back to 1969′s Aoxomoxoa.
Performing on June 27 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh and Bob Weir were joined by guests including Phish‘s Trey Anastasio and Bruce Hornsby for the first in a five-show run to mark the Grateful Dead’s 50th anniversary.
“Uncle John’s Band, ” which found Weir joined by Lesh on vocals, included the first of several jams. Anastasio handled vocals on “Cumberland Blues” and “Cream Puff War, ” before joining Lesh and Weir for “Viola Lee Blues, ” which closed the initial set. A complete list of songs from Santa Clara is included below.
Anastasio likewise joined Lesh and Weir for a loose run through “Dark Star, ” while “St. Stephen” gave Hornsby – an early-’90s touring collaborator with the Jerry Garcia-led lineup – an oppportunity to shine. Weir’s vocal take on “Turn On Your Love Light” gave way to a drum showcase for Hart and Kreutzmann. The Grateful Dead closed with “The Other One” and “Morning Dew, ” before returning for a Hornsby-sung encore of “Casey Jones.”
The Fare Thee Well concerts continue today (June 28) at Santa Clara, Calif., then resume July 3-5 at Soldier Field in Chicago, the site of the Grateful Dead’s final show with the late Garcia on July 9, 1995.
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