Entertainment

The Cars frontman Ric Ocasek found dead, 75

Ric Ocasek 

Ric Ocasek, the lead singer of iconic new wave rock band The Cars, was found dead in his Manhattan apartment on Sunday, law enforcement sources told The Post. He was 75 years old.

Ocasek was discovered unconscious and unresponsive around 4:14 p.m. inside his Gramercy Park pad by his estranged wife, model Paulina Porizkova, sources said.

He appeared to have died from natural causes, sources added.

Ocasek and The Cars shot to fame with their 1978 self-titled debut album, which included hits such as “My Best Friend’s Girl” and “Just What I Needed.”

The singer reflected on his years in the band when he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year.

“It’s certainly a wonderful feeling to be accepted by peers and you see the people that are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, who gets inducted, it’s a positive feeling that you get,” Ocasek said in an interview with Rolling Stone.

From 1978 to 1987, the band churned out six records — “five of which are good-to-great,” said Erik Adams, an AV Club music critic, in a 2018 article.

“And then there are The Cars, the type of band that put out a perfect debut record, and then had the audacity to not pack it in after that,” the critic wrote.

In 1984, the band received another notable accolade, winning MTV’s “Video of the Year” award for its hit song off its fifth album, “You Might Think.”

After a long hiatus, the band reunited in 2011 and released an album called “Move Like This.” It was the band’s first and only album without bassist Benjamin Orr, who died in 2000.

Ocasek had recently placed the home where he was found on the market after he and Porizkova announced their split in May 2018.

The pair — who shared two children — had been together for 28 years when they separated.

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