Art cars are one of my favorite things in the whole entire world. I love ‘em. It’s fun to see what companies will come up with to just simply celebrate their achievements without worrying if people will buy it. It is the answer to the question “so what if Van Gogh used a car as a canvas?” and that is extremely my…
Swiss artist Adrian Falkner, who signs his work as Smash 137, has filed a lawsuit against General Motors for featuring his commissioned graffiti artwork in a Cadillac campaign ad, claiming the automaker’s photos featured on social media infringed on the copyrights of his work.
I was first made familiar with Yoshikawa’s meticulous work during my period of obsession with Toyota’s 2000GT. As a young man I was enamored with the work and history of Carroll Shelby, which led me to the Toyota sports car. Yoshikawa literally wrote the book that defined the history of the 2000GT, and I saved my…
If you’ve ever done design work or art work or nearly any creative work for hire, at some point you’ve most likely encountered some asshole who wants to use your work for free in exchange for “exposure.” It now appears that Elon Musk is one of those assholes, stealing an image of a farting unicorn from an artist.
This year, during the 24 Hours of Le Mans race, artist and photographer Jayson Fong sat down to his desk to produce one piece of art for each hour of the race. A motorsport fanatic of the first degree, Jayson’s art is usually quite detailed. For this endeavor, however, he needed to finish a piece quite quickly, and it…
Usually when people think of modifying a car, it’s to make it more of a car. Y’know—some engine upgrades, better suspension, that kind of thing. But if you’re French artist Benedetto Bufalino, your idea of a modification would be a little different. More along the lines of “so what if I turn this car into a pizza…
You have pined your entire life for a poster featuring a 1989 Toyota Corolla All-Trac. But you also have a thing, weirdly, for the Scion xD, a car nobody ever loved. And a Lexus SC300. And a Toyota Prius Prime. And a brand-spanking-new Toyota 4Runner TRD Pro. But no one was able to give you all of these things, on a…
When we describe a car’s aesthetics, there are certain words we tend to use. They can be sexy or sleek, square or sporty, functional or futuristic. Cars, however, are usually not called “fat”. Austrian artist Erwin Wurm is asking, why the hell not?
A common dream amongst real, normal humans is to drive one of the hulking monsters from pre-war Grand Prix racing. But alas, those things cost millions (if they’re not just considered priceless). The next best thing is to build your own miniature version, completely with a throaty, raspy, buzzy V16 engine in the back.…
Joshua Vides is an artist best known for making real things look like drawings. He’s likely best known for his sneakers, which sure as hell look like drawings of sneakers. He’s also done porta-potties, street signs, rooms, and more, changing the look of reality into drawings. He’s got an exhibit at Los Angeles’ …
There’s a book I’ve been reading from 1958, written by a man named John Keats (not this one), and called The Insolent Chariots. At its core, it’s a guy bitching about the absurd excesses of the American automotive industry in the 1950s, along with some wonderfully unhinged illustrations from Robert Osborn. But at this…
Artist and maker of gloriously shitty robots Simone Giertz owns a 1980s Sebring-Vanguard Citicar—a wonderful, slow, little wedge-shaped automotive footnote. Keeping true to her ideals, Giertz’ car is no longer just a little electric commuter vehicle—it’s also the world’s largest and perhaps least-useful computer mouse.
Montreal police probably rolled their eyes at the idiot who parked their snow-covered early ‘90s Toyota Supra right in a snow-removal lane, completely blocking in other parked cars. They went to ticket the car, and got to the point of lifting its very real windshield wiper when they realized, hey, this isn’t a…
Janis Zettel of Clearfield City, Utah was given a non-running ‘73 Volkswagen Super Beetle as a gift by her son. While neither her nor her son was that interested in getting the Beetle running, Zettel liked the car, which she named Lucy and painted to look like a ladybug. Deciding the car made her happier as lawn art,…
Renowned automotive artist Nicolas Hunziker likes to ring in each new year with a quick vintage automotive-themed painting to celebrate the occasion. This time he’s chosen to depict a scene of Porsche’s famous 1968 911R sprinting past the pits while a member of the crew holds up the pit board. The 12-month-long race…
John Frye is a Digital Modeling Group Leader at Honda. He’s a professional automotive designer. That means when he decides to do a little bit of imaginative automotive artwork for fun, it ends up being the sort of thing that grabs your attention and makes you feel funny way deep in the car-glands. He’s been working on…
Fact: all generations of Porsche 911 are good, but the 964 is epic, and anything air-cooled offers a brilliant sound and driving experience that can’t be replicated with a water-cooled model. As it turns out many people agree with my wisdom, and they gather each year in Houston for an event called TejasTreffPunkt to…
It’s funny, I just sketched something like this out to make for my kid on Halloween, but, crucially, I didn’t get around to doing it. Clay Weiland, however, is a much more together person, because he did follow through and make a fantastic kid-in-car costume for his son on Halloween. Even better, it’s an old BMW 1600.
I doodle pretty compulsively. Despite what people generally seem to think at the time, doodling means I’m listening; it’s a way to quiet down the brain to focus on things, a simple distraction ploy to corral a mind that tends to be unruly. When I doodle, there’s lots of car-related stuff that comes up again and again,…
