As you either already know or are learning just now with a mix of panic and guilt, today is Valentine's Day. Cars and love, are, of course, very intwined, with cars serving as objects of ardor, locations for love-production, and, of course, objects of lust. But as far as I can tell, there's only been one car shaped like a heart.
When I decided I wanted to track down heart-shaped cars for Valentine's day, I was expecting to have a little list of some sort. People love to make cars that look like things that aren't cars, so I figured of all the organs in the body, heart-cars would be plentiful. I was wrong.
In fact, I only found one actual, drivable, completed heart-shaped car, and it was built for a yogurt commercial. Which might be the absolute least romantic use of heart imagery I can think of.
The commercial was for a yogurt called Danacol, made by Danone, which I think we have in the US as Dannon yogurt. It's one of those yogurts that acts like Drano for your veins or something, clearing out all the plaque and hair clogs and whatever you've got jamming up your blood-pipes. Or something like that.
The heart-as-car conceit was the lynchpin of the whole ad, with the yogurt's two main active agents, Omega 3 and "Plant Steroids" (you know, that stuff that makes all those ferns bulk up and pick all those fights in greenhouses) shown as a pair of mechanics, working on the nice lady's heart mobile.
The heart car was designed and built by Asylum Models and Effects in the UK, on what looks to be a custom tube-frame chassis with a Mini 1275cc engine. A description of the car from a very recent ad listing it for sale (from just two days ago!) says it's rear-wheel drive, which would be pretty unusual for a Mini engine. An animation from Asylum seems to show a more Mini-traditional FWD drivetrain installed, though. Maybe one of our UK readers can check it out and let us know what's what.
The actual design and sculpting of the body itself seems to have been done by Sculpture Studios, I'm guessing under contract with Asylum. I just want to be sure that if anyone needs a spleen or pancreas car made, they know the best sources to seek out.
They're asking £49955 (about $80 grand) for the car, and claim it cost £65,000 (over $100K) to build, which isn't too surprising considering it's a totally custom-built car made to look like an organ.
So, if you still haven't gotten your special whomever anything for Valentine's Day, and you have cash to burn and a really strong desire to see the object of your affections driving around in not just any organ-shaped car, but the organ most associated with the concept of love, then boy are you in luck.
Go out there and get the world's only heart-shaped car. For love.