FLAMING ’PIRE: With the Manhattan Bridge as a backdrop, a Saab 900 goes up in flames in the music video for “Diane Young,” a new single by Vampire Weekend, the indie-rock band fronted by singer Ezra Koenig (right). (
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It’s a real Saab story!
The Brooklyn-based indie-rock band Vampire Weekend is taking heat for torching two beloved old cars on the set of its new music video.
The doting owners of two Saab 900s had thought they were selling the rides to someone who would care for them — but the rockers set them ablaze in front of the Manhattan Bridge, a worker involved claims.
The worker — a tow-truck driver who transported the cars to the video shoot for the band’s single “Diane Young” — is now calling the rockers out for their lack of respect for the wheels.
“The previous owners were telling me all of the nice times they had in [the cars] and to make sure to take care of them,” Brian Da Silva, owner of CBR Towing, wrote on his Facebook page.
“Little do they know, they [are] charcoal.”
Da Silva told The Post band reps had bought the Swedish-made cars in working condition.
The destruction of two cult-favorite cars enraged auto fans.
“Those weren’t busted-ass cars. They were deeply loved by their owners, who wanted to see them go to a nice new home,” car enthusiast Patrick George wrote on the auto-news blog Jalopnik.
Other auto fans admitted the Saabs might technically be “junkers” but said memories tied to them were priceless.
The music video, released last week, features a slow-motion shot of two Saabs burning in front of the East River.
“You torched a Saab like a pile of leaves. I’d gone to find some better wheels,” singer Ezra Koenig wails in the song.
Band members say destroying the wheels was an artistic statement — not a move meant to irk sentimental car collectors.
“I want people to understand that we do respect cars and the last thing we want to do is to f–k up a collector’s item or something like that,” Koenig told the music blog Spinner.
“Our record label was trying to purchase the cheapest, oldest cars possible.”
He added that the band’s keyboardist, Rostam Batmanglij, grew up riding in Saabs.
Band members came up with the concept for the video but were not present on set, he said.
The Saabs, likely from the early ’90s, were each worth $3,000. One was a white hatchback, the other a black convertible.
Torching the wheels may have also been a violation of the New York’s Clean Air Act. Burning paint and metal is an environmental hazard, the state Department of Environmental Conservation says on its Web site.
The rock quartet began churning out chart-toppers such as “Oxford Comma” and “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” in 2006.
It will release its album “Modern Vampires of the City” in May. On April 28, it will play the Roseland Ballroom in Midtown.
The band’s publicist declined to comment.
Additional reporting by Frank Rosario