Sometimes a car is special because of its attributes: make, model, vintage, quality.

Sometimes a car is special because of its story: who owned it, when, where, or why.

And sometimes a car has all of the above going for it.

I’m a car guy, yes. But I’m also a child of the sixties. I came of age at a time when rock music was simply at its best.

(My daughters might argue that point with me, but instead of taking the bait with this younger generation, I say just crank the volume louder. After all, The Who wasn’t meant to be played quietly.)

One of the people who made the soundtrack to my life possible was Aaron J. Newman.

Never heard of him?

I guarantee you have heard his work.

Aaron Newman was an electrical engineer and a co-founder of Musitronics. He designed and marketed amplifiers and the first electronic wah-wah pedal, the MuTron, among other products that allowed the music industry to crank up the volume and warp sound to its will.

If you’ve listened to Led Zeppelin, the Grateful Dead, Blood, Sweat & Tears, or any of countless best-selling rock albums, you’ve heard Aaron Newman’s creations at work.

But Newman wasn’t just a music guy. He was a car guy too. And an airplane pilot. And a collector and restorer of both classic automobiles and planes. He was a member of the NEPA Section of Mercedes Club and the Antique Automobile Club of America.

It makes sense to me. I think these things go hand-in-hand. A great piece of music is really the same as a complex and beautiful piece of machinery.

And Newman owned one of the best: a 1989 Mercedes-Benz 560 SEL. This is a vehicle I consider one of the last great high quality Mercedes Benz motor cars, a machine crafted with an attention to quality and detail second to none.

Aaron Newman resurrected this particular automobile after a long sleep with the help of the technician who was at the time the top trouble-shooter for Mercedes-Benz North America. Newman enjoyed driving and showing it until his passing last November at the age of 88.

When Newman’s family decided to part with some of his collection, I found myself in the driver’s seat of perhaps the most impeccably restored and maintained 560 SEL I’ve come across in my career.

But added to that was this sense of the surreal. I tuned the radio to a classic rock station and thought about the fact that I was sitting in a vehicle owned by the very man behind some of the unique sound coming through the speakers.

I’ve bought and sold cars owned by rock stars, and that always inspires in me a similar sense of awe, but this was a little different. It was sort of like seeing behind the curtain, touching a part of rock and roll history we don’t consciously think of very often.

The vehicle is now available for purchase by another fortunate collector—offered by Barry Bixby Automotive together with the Oxford Motor Cars Group—and you can click here for full details and great photos.

But I admit I took a moment to honor the memory of Mr. Aaron J. Newman in a manner I think he would have appreciated: I listened to some wah-wah at maximum volume.