Celebrity garages can be hit or miss. Not everyone's a car enthusiast, granted, but there's something about getting rich that compels people to fill their driveways with something. That's why you see so many celebs stepping out of identical Lamborghinis and G-Wagens—yawn. And it's why we find ourselves tipping our hat to one Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta—aka Lady Gaga—upon realizing that she drives an original 1993 Ford F-150 SVT Lightning.
The Venn diagram of The Drive readers and Lady Gaga fans is likely small, so we'll just note that the pop icon is back in the spotlight this year after starring opposite Bradley Cooper in A Star Is Born and charting her first number one hit song ("Shallow," from the movie) in eight years. More germane is the fact that as one of the best-selling artists in history, she's got an estimated net worth of around $300,000,000.
Three hundred million dollars can buy literally any car in the world a few times over. Lady Gaga, who only got her driver's license in 2016 at age 30, decided to skip the Rolls Royce dealer and instead grab a mint-condition 1993 Ford SVT Lightning. At most, we're talking $30-40,000 for a time-capsule survivor.
For the uninitiated, the SVT Lightning is one of the original factory performance pickup trucks, a lowered F-150 hotted up with suspension upgrades, a 240-horsepower 5.8-liter V8, and a heavy-duty automatic transmission. Ford built the first run of the SVT Lightning from 1993 to 1995, then brought it back to the tenth-generation F-150 from 1999 to 2004. The original trucks have become something of a cult item since then, and enterprising dealers have been trying to capitalize on that deep-pocketed nostalgia with single-cab special editions designed to evoke the past.
Credit to Lady Gaga for picking such an interesting first car and getting one in such amazing condition. The singer and actress has since been photographed in a few other interesting rides, from a Chevrolet El Camino, to a classic Ford Bronco, to a Mercedes-Benz W123 sedan. She's still got the Lightning, though. Paparazzi sometimes catch her behind the wheel, and it makes the occasional appearance on her Instagram page.
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