American Pickers Find and Restore Aerosmith’s 1st Tour Van

The story of Aerosmith's first tour van is almost as legendary as the iconic band itself.  The vehicle that ferried Steve, Joe, Brad, Tom, and Joey to their earliest gigs was almost lost to time.

2 years ago, the 1964 International Harvester Metro that the band had re-purposed to deliver the rock and the roll to fans near their hometown of Boston was found slowly decaying in the woods.  Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz, hosts of The History Channel program American Pickers, found that the old rust-bucket still had the original artwork and logo, but was otherwise in the kind of shape you expect an abandoned van in the woods to be in. Since Mike and Frank recognize lost and undiscovered treasures from the past for a living, they knew that this van had to be saved.

I am happy to report that not only was the van rescued from a quiet end rusting away in the forest, it has been faithfully restored!  The full episode aired last night, but you can check out the moment that the staff of American Pickers revealed the fully restored rolling piece of rock and roll history to Aerosmith in the video below.