Quasiclassical trajectory calculations have been applied to study intermolecular potential effects in the collisional deactivation of highly vibrationally excited aromatic molecules by noble gases. For benzene + helium and benzene + argon several potential functions of Lennard-Jones 12-6 and EXP-6 type were used. At low well depths epsilon (for benzene + helium) energy transfer is dominated by the exact shape of the intermolecular potential, especially of the repulsive part, whereas the dependence on E itself is less important. At higher well depths (for benzene + argon) the energy transfer parameters [Delta E] and [Delta E(2)] scale with epsilon and are much less sensitive to details of the interaction. New potential parameters based on experimental scattering data for the benzene + helium system are presented, which provide very good agreement with experimental energy transfer parameters for the deactivation of benzene and azulene by helium.