Imagine the sweet emotion that comes with finding a lost relic of rock and roll history buried deep in the woods of Massachusetts.

As crazy as that sounds, that’s exactly what happened to the hosts of the popular History Channel show American Pickers. On a hunch, the pickers – whose entire show is predicated on picking through trash and looking for treasures – investigated rumors that the rock band Aerosmith’s original touring van was rotting away somewhere in the backwoods of the Bay State. After some amazing detective work, the van actually checked out – it had belonged to the legendary band when they first began performing in the early 1970s.

Original Aerosmith tour van found in small Massachusetts town by "American Pickers" https://t.co/LcgZZfPilE pic.twitter.com/J7YCBEgHrJ

— CBS News (@CBSNews) August 12, 2018

According to founding band member Ray Tabano:

“I’m afraid to say how long it is, but it’s been, like, 40 years since we’ve been in this thing,” said Tabano, who reminisced that the van served as a “rolling hotel” that transported the band between shows.

Though the logo on the van isn’t the one the band is known for, the name “Aerosmith” – essentially the band’s brand for almost 50 years – is clearly there in big, bright-yellow letters, beckoning for eyeballs. Working in the promotional products industry where branding power is paramount, this got me thinking about how many impressions a logo like this could’ve received over its lifetime … so I set out in search of an answer.

Assuming the band used this van in its earlier years before hitting it big in 1973, I reached out to our stat guy and fellow classic rock fan, Market Research Director Nate Kucsma, with this query:

If Aerosmith did 100 gigs a year for three years, between 1970-72, and traveled extensively in and around their hometown of Boston, how many impressions do you think this van generated?

A reasonable assumption considering the band was still fairly unknown and trying to establish a following.

Not one to shun a statistical challenge, Nate dove deep into his magical spreadsheets and churned out this very, ahem, scientific response:

--The average distance the band traveled for each show, let's say, was around 60 miles.
--Figuring that the van would have been noticed by about 20 cars per mile, and that each car had, let's say 1.5 people in it, this would equal 1,800 people that could have seen the car each direction.
--So 3,600 round trip.
--Now, let's say it was parked for an average of four hours outside the venue it would have been seen, possibly by let's say another 1,000 if it were parked in a prominent position.
--So now we are at about 4,600 impressions per trip which would equate to about 1.4 million impressions over that time period.

That’s 1.4 million impressions generated by one logoed van over the course of just three years! (By comparison the average rock ‘n’ roll T-shirt generates less than 2,500 impressions over a lifetime.) Of course, Nate punctuated this stat by declaring, “I'm sure that this figure is 100% accurate without any possible variation. ... Then again, it may be off by a few million one direction or the other.”

Whoa, let’s pump the brakes there, dude. I know, this number could be off but I doubt by much. In fact, I think it could be markedly higher. Which makes me wonder: are logoed automobiles the ultimate rock ‘n’ roll promotional product? I gotta think so. Tweet at me and let me know what you think: @asicentral.

And if you’re curious about the fate of the van and if it’s possibly still available, dream on. The pickers bought it for a hefty $25K. How’s that for livin’ on the edge?