Art car
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An art car is a vehicle that has its appearance modified as an act of personal artistic expression. Art car owners often dress in a matching motif when displaying their cars.
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Overview
Art cars are public and mobile expressions of the artistic need to create. In creating an art car, the
- "exteriors and interiors of factory-made automobiles are transformed into expressions of individual ideas, values, beliefs and dreams. the cars range from imaginatively painted vehicles to extravagant fantasies whose original bodies are concealed beneath newly sculptured shells"
- (from Petersen Automotive Museum's Spring 2003 Los Angeles, California exhibit Wild Wheels: Art for the Road Gallery Guide)
Some art cars
The Worthington Bottle Car
One of the earliest examples are the Bottle Cars (http://www.coorsvisitorcenter.co.uk/hr_transport.asp?section_id=75) built in the 1920s to advertise Worthington Beer in England. The five cars were fitted out with boiler plate bodies to resemble the shape of a bottle laid on its side - each one weighed about 2.3 tons.
The Nevada Car
Built on an International Harvester pickup truck as a community project during Reno, Nevada's Reno Days event. Features a "supercharger" on the hood which is actually the motor head unit from a Kirby Sani-Tronic vacuum cleaner. Now owned and driven by Patrick Dailey of Novato, California, who states: " Wherever we go people are always trying to give us more junk to put on it." and "...we hardly ever have to buy our own gas."
Camera Van
A van entirely covered with photographic and videocameras and featuring a video display. This vehicle has the distinction of being one of the few works of art that actually looks back at the viewer, as it photographs and videotapes them using some of the cameras mounted upon it, and has the ability to play the video back on the external screen, allowing you to watch it - watching you as you are watching it watch you.
Oh my God!
A Volkswagen Beetle with the California license plate OMYGAWD, which features exotic plastic fruits and vegetables, a world globe and the phrase "Oh my God" painted in dozens of languages.
Telephone Car
Whose "touch tone phone" design completely disguises its origin as a Volkswagen Beetle. It looks like a giant red phone, complete with handset and 'twisty phone cord'
Guitcycle
This art car is a motorcycle which appears to be a guitar, and is used as a promotional tool to help raise money, for a charity that buys guitars for young music students that need them.
Rocket Car
A car that looks like a Buck Rogers style art deco rocket ship, complete with a gauge-filled cockpit interior which appears to be suitable for a jet aircraft.
Furthur and Further
The day-glo painted schoolbus Further (http://www.intrepidtrips.com/bus/index.html) is a 'remake' of the original bus known as "Furthur" (the original) which is the actual real-life Merry Pranksters' hippie bus whose destination sign read simply "Furthur" and which "tootled the multitudes" in 1964 in 'real life' and in Tom Wolfe's book The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test The bus is also prominently mentioned in the Grateful Dead's song "(That's it for) The Other One", as "the bus to never-ever land" with "...Cowboy Neal (Neal Cassady) at the wheel...".
H-Wing Carfighter
A "next generation" art car is the H-Wing Carfighter (http://www.shawnandcolleen.com/shawn/Pages/hwing/index.html), a science fiction-themed 1995 Honda Civic del Sol SI two-seater. Designed after a Rebel Alliance A-Wing fighter from Star Wars, it features external laser cannons, lighting effects and an automated R2-D2 "Astromech droid". The interior features computers and other gadgetry. Many modifications are made from "found" parts including sports equipment, plumbing fixtures, and toys. The overall design blends elements of real war machines through the ages, such as World War Two fighter planes, with the fictional. H-Wing is a member of Road Squadron (http://www.roadsquadron.com/), a collection of science fiction-related art cars, and generated a great deal of web traffic when featured on Fark.com and Slashdot (see Slashdot effect).
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History
Mankind's fascination with decorating our vehicles probably predates the custom of Roman charioteers to adorn their vehicles with objects of a personal nature.
A well known early art car used for commercial advertisement was the Oscar Meyer Wienie Wagon - Later versions were known as the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile. These were bus-sized vehicles styled to appear as a hot dog on a bun.
Art car events
External links
- Art Cars in Cyberspace (http://www.artcars.com/)
- Art Cars page at AVAM (http://www.avam.org/artcar/index.html)
- Intrepid Trips (http://www.intrepidtrips.com)
- Road Squadron (http://www.roadsquadron.com/)