The Cars (discography and deluxe versions)

Although I didn't purchase any Cars albums until 1983, I'm pretty sure I was a fan long before that.  Between September of '83 and May of '84 I picked up the first 5 albums on LP, as well as a live bootleg called "The Cars '78."  Later I also got the vinyl record of the Greatest Hits.

During the 90's I bought the 6th studio album, "Door to Door", on CD, as well as the Greatest Hits, and a 2CD collection called "Just What I Needed" a 40-track anthology that contains 3 B-Sides, 6 demos and 2 previously unreleased covers, as well as all but one of the tracks from the Greatest Hits album and some deeper album cuts.

In 2017 and 2018 expanded versions of Candy-O, Panorama, Shake it Up, and Heartbeat City were released, each containing rare and unreleased tracks.  I picked up all of them, and then found out that the debut album had previously been released as a 2CD set (the second disc contains 13 demos and a live track) in 1999, so I tracked that down as well.

Yesterday, I received a CD copy of the 7th studio album, "Move Like This" which completes my Cars collection.  I am missing "It's Alive" by the New Cars - which was formed of Elliot Easton and Greg Hawkes from the Cars, as well as Todd Rundgren (on vocals), Kasim Sulton and Praire Prince.  That particular album contains 15 live recordings (2 of which are Rundgren originals, the rest The Cars originals) as well as 3 new studio recordings.

Benjamin Orr, who died in 2000, released a solo album called "The Lace" which I have on vinyl.  Elliot Easton and Greg Hawkes have each released 2 albums outside of the Cars, and Ric Ocasek, who died in 2019, has released 7 solo albums.  As I am collecting Ric Ocasek's solo material, I will feature that when I have most of his work (one of his albums is extremely hard to find, and very expensive, so I likely will not be getting that one).