’70s superstar Dan Hill fretted over buying new car

Dan Hill's first car, a '76 Ford Maverick.

Yvonne Marton

SPECIAL TO THE STAR

Singer/songwriter Dan Hill bought his brand new yellow Ford Maverick in 1976 for $5,000.

With two gold albums at the time in Canada, the 22-year-old rising star had money to spare. But even so, Hill says he was “freaked out” about buying the car.

“I thought ‘how am I ever going to afford it?’ And then I was feeling guilty because I was this huge conspicuous consumer.”

Trying to talk down the dealer — to no avail, his income of $100,000 a year had been publicized — he bought the cheapest car he could get.

Hill grew up in a frugal household where he says spending money frivolously was akin to being a child molester.

“It was looked on as a bad, bad thing to be materialistic because my dad always said he was a socialist.”

His father, Daniel Grafton Hill, was a prominent educator, civil rights activist and the first director of the Ontario Human Rights Commission. In In Dan Hill’s book, I Am My Father’s Son, he details the high expectations and occasional battles with his sometimes domineering father.

But if his new car didn’t garner much respect with his family — it was even worse when he drove around Toronto. Canada had few celebrities at the time, and with his trademark wild, full head of hair, Hill was easy to spot. And mock.

“People everyday would yell out: ‘What the hell are you driving that for — you should have a Mercedes!’ ”

He says he took it as a compliment.

If there’s some truth to the saying “you are your car,” Hill is very much the maverick.

“There was a part of me that was always a bit of a rebel — if they said I should have a nice car then I wanted to have a bad car.”

As he puts it, he didn’t want to be a cliché, jumping around in a Rolls-Royce.

Despite his laid-back demeanour and reputation for romantic ballads, including the iconic love song “Sometimes when we touch,” Hill says people wouldn’t drive with him because his right hand was always on the radio, pushing the buttons, changing channels. “I would literally break the buttons on the radio.”

His new car also offered a new level of freedom. Not having to wait for a ride, or schlepping his guitar and gear on the TTC, Hill wondered why he waited so long to get his first car.

Older now, with close-cropped greying hair, Hill has gone on to a lucrative career penning hits for the likes of Celine Dion, The Backstreet Boys, and N’Sync to name a few.

Ultimately, he is nostalgic not for his first car but for his manager’s Mercedes, the car he borrowed on occasion prior to purchasing the Maverick.

“I have to admit that it was amazing. To be 21 years of age, your first song is on the radio, it’s summer and I thought this is it, man – this is as good as it gets.”

Hill says it symbolized in a romantic way everything that was perfect and his “guilty pleasure” as he calls it, was to one day own a Mercedes. Years later he did buy one, as he says, “to fill a void,” but notes that with material things “it never really fills the void.”

So whatever happened to the ’76 Maverick? Hill says he passed it on to his brother Lawrence (author of the award-winning Book of Negroes).

A childhood friend who had access to Hill’s bank account — he was looking after Hill’s house while he toured — bought him a new BMW with his own money without asking his permission first.

His friend’s reason? It was the car Hill should be driving but was too cheap to ever buy for himself.

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