BRUCE Springsteen loves cars.

In his songs, he has seduced women in them, driven until dawn, stolen and crashed dozens of vehicles over the decades.

In a new exhibition of photos of The Boss to coincide with his Wrecking Ball tour opening this week, it appears he has also owned plenty of cars.

media_camera Bruce Springsteen in a Corvette in Holmdel, New Jersey in 1978. Picture: Lynn Goldsmith

The exhibition From Darkness To A Dream takes fans behind the scenes on tour with Springsteen, on the road with his cars and bikes and lifts the veil on album artwork shoots by famed rock photographers Frank Stefanko, Danny Clinch and Lynn Goldsmith.

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media_camera Bruce Springsteen in concert in Milwaukee in 2008. Picture: Danny Clinch

The Blender Gallery exhibition provides a rare glimpse of the Boss relaxing with his E Street bandmates, warming up before a show and hanging out in his beloved New Jersey.

''Frank always shot your internal life. He let your external imperfections show. His photos had a purity and poetry,'' Springsteen said of the 1978 sessions with Stefanko which would result in the cover of The Darkness.

media_camera Bruce Springsteen at New Brunswick Boxing Gym in 2009. Picture: Danny Clinch

Goldsmith's first shoot with Springsteen in April 1972 in New York was daunting for the aspiring snapper.

She was sent by Rolling Stone on her first assignment to snap a portrait of this rising star who was being hailed as ''the Bob Dylan of the '70s''.

media_camera The Sitdown at Shellow's: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at Shellow's Ice Cream Shop in New Jersey 1978. Picture: Frank Stefanko

''The article was going to be called It's Sign Up A Genius Month. Because the shoot was set to take place in a dark bar on Bleecker Street in New York, I knew I could not depend on available light. I would need a flash. I'd never used one before and thought this ''genius'' is going to know I'm stupid,'' Goldsmith said.

''Six years later, Bruce told me what he was thinking the first time I took his picture. 'I thought a Rolling Stone photographer; a girl who lives in New York City - she knows what she's doing. She's going to think I'm just this guy with a bar band from New Jersey. She's going to think I'm a dope''.

media_camera Bruce Springsteen picutred here in 2006. Picture: Danny Clinch

Clinch has worked extensively with The Boss over the past decade, shooting the album covers for The Rising, The Seeger Sessions and Working on a Dream.

Springsteen is expected to arrive in Australia on Tuesday to kick off his first tour here since 2003.

It opens in Brisbane on Thursday before heading to Sydney and Hanging Rock in Victoria next week.

From Darkness To A Dream - Images of Bruce Springsteen is on at the Blender Gallery in Paddington from March 14 to April 20.

Originally published as Fast cars rev The Boss' engine