Ric Ocasek was the perfect rock star for outcasts, misfits and geeks.

Ocasek died of heart disease this past weekend, at age 75. His longtime partner Paulina Porizkova discovered he had died in his Gramercy Park townhouse while bringing him his morning coffee.

As the leader of hit-making group the Cars, Ocasek was gawky and nerdy and weird-looking enough to break the mold of what a frontman was supposed to look like — albeit, his habit of wearing sunglasses around the clock did not hurt.

While his dozen-plus top-40 songs were embraced by the masses, Ocasek had a heartening message for those on the outside: “When you become tired of fitting in is when you truly become yourself.”

Here are five other things that made Ocasek ultra-cool.

He had a supermodel wife

Porizkova was one of the sharpest catwalkers out there, with a children’s book and acclaimed novel to her credit. Porizkova and Ocasek met on the set of the Cars’ music video shoot for the 1984 smash hit “Drive” and he became the consummate ugly dude with a hot chick (giving hope to the rest of us). Immediately smitten, Ocasek left his wife for Porizkova, and she embraced him.

Despite the seeming divergence in their looks, she called him “the sexiest man alive” in a 2011 interview.

And even in the wake of their “peacefully separated” split in 2018 (after nearly 30 years of marriage), Porizkova gushed about their love for one another being “so wide and deep it’s practically tangible.”

He dug the coolest bands

Back in the early 2000s, when New York’s indie music scene was ruled by groundbreaking bands like The Strokes and Jonathan Fire*Eater, Ocasek was a frequent presence at their shows. The prime place to see them was a joint called Bowery Ballroom. Ocasek was there often enough that he had his regular spot: a perch on the stairs going up to the club’s balcony and facing the stage.

A couple of years before Ocasek’s death, Brandon Flowers (whose Killers were rising alterna-rockers in the early 2000s) sent him an unbridled fan letter. Following Ocasek’s death, Flowers deemed him “my king.”

He produced the coolest bands

While he was with the Cars and after, Ocasek produced tracks and albums for the smartest, hippest groups out there. They ranged from Weezer to Guided by Voices to Bad Brains and Suicide.

Describing himself as someone who favored “the left side of the music brain,” Ocasek expressed his omnivore-ish tendencies by explaining that he “loved the Velvet Underground and the Carpenters.” He took Suicide — known at that point for their aggressive musical repetition — on tour with him, willing to push the boundaries of what Cars fans craved.

“The booing started before they reached their second song,” Ocasek said with pride.

He quit the Cars for 23 years

Most rock stars bust up their bands because the money stops flowing or the creativity runs dry. Not Ocasek. Following six albums — five of which went platinum — Ocasek decided to call it a day after touring to support the band’s “Door to Door” album (merely a gold-garnering release).

He shut things down for the best possible reason: “It was the first tour we did that wasn’t fun,” Ocasek told Rolling Stone. “Some people took buses, some people took planes. Nobody talked. I was like, ‘This has to stop. We’ll stop in this spot.’ ”

That was in 1988. Twenty-three years later, in 2011, the band reunited for a final tour and album, “Move Like This.” They went dark again before reuniting last year to bang out a four-song set in celebration of their Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction.

He was loved by other rockers

Following the death of Ocasek, hearts poured out on social media. Touching tweets came from the likes of Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea (“I loved Ric Ocasek. What an interesting, smart, kind, funny man who made incredible records”), rocker Courtney Love (“All of the band Hole loved working with you”), band Weezer (“When you were his friend, it was for life . . .”) and singer/songwriter Richard Marx (“Thank you for the songs on ‘Heartbeat City’ alone”).

Marx topped off his tweet with a sentiment that we all share: “You were a true original.”