Aerosmith reunited with restored tour van salvaged from Chesterfield woods

ERIN O’NEILL

Staff Writer 

Published: 07-09-2019 4:56 PM

Rock legends Aerosmith were reunited with their original tour van from the 1970s, which was plucked out of the Chesterfield woods last summer on the TV show “American Pickers.”

Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz, hosts of the show on the History Channel, purchased the van for $25,000 and restored it. In an episode that aired Monday, Wolfe and Fritz presented the now-road-worthy 1960s International Harvester Metro Van to members of Aerosmith in Las Vegas.

“I think it’s f------ amazing,” Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry said when the band saw the restored van for the first time. “You saved it … you guys did such a good job making it look like it did then,” he said to Wolfe and Fitz.

“I’ve had some of my fondest memories in this van,” drummer Joey Kramer said.

Kramer identified the man in the cartoon on the side of the van as Mark Lehman, the former owner of the van who was the band’s manager in the ’70s.

“He drove the van, he serviced the van, he set up our gear, and he ran the sound system,” Kramer said in the show.

“Mark was buddies with me and Tom (Hamilton, Aerosmith’s bassist) before we moved to Boston,” Perry said. 

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Aerosmith’s old ties to Chesterfield and the Hilltowns were known to many residents.

Tiger Thomas, whose father, Tommy Thomas of Goshen, used to own the Lunchbox in Williamsburg, told the Gazette in 2018 that he had known the tour van was in the woods for quite some time.

“I had heard stories at the Lunchbox that the band members used to go swimming up at the Chesterfield Gorge,” Thomas said. “It was nice to get some kind of credence to those stories.”

“You know, I think this is awesome,” Thomas said when the van was sold. “The way I see it, the Hilltowns have lost a piece of history but I love that it has gotten into the right hands and will be restored.”

With reporting by Fran Ryan.

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