Turning your passion into a career is something that very few people on this earth get to do. Whether you enjoy medicine, automobiles or accounting it simply doesn’t matter. Artists have always amazed and intrigued me. They see things differently than you or I and through their own vision of creativity, get to show the rest of the world their vision through whatever medium they choose. We’re all on this website because we love automobiles and they fulfill a part of us that would otherwise be left empty.
This next list is not a listing of who’s who in the art world. It is more so a list of artists who present us with their amazing visions of what the automobile is to them. Now take a look at some very cool visuals and make sure you pay their sites a visit because this is only the tip of their creative icebergs.
Hardtop, no fenders. Personally, I like the Wehrmacht helmet look of the roof.
I’m pretty much a take-’em-or-leave-’em guy when it comes to cars built before the sixties. Sure, I appreciate the styling and craftsmanship, I just wouldn’t want to own one. Every rule has it’s exception, and mine is the ’32 or ’33 Ford Coupe.
While last week’s cycle-fendered fois gras ratcheted up the Jerry Lewis factor to 11, it was as good as obese goose-liver pate compared to today’s nutcase creation. Join us as we examine another object of lust, fear, and revulsion – a combination not unlike every David Lynch film ever made, ESPECIALLY Blue Velvet. We only wish Dennis Hopper had driven this.
Today’s Implement of Destruction: the Watson 350
What has open wheels, a fuel-injected Chevy V8 blowing exhaust through baffled straight pipes, no roof or doors to speak of, and a Bruce-Springsteen-anthem-style patriotic paint job? Why, we’re glad you asked. Today’s “melt your face off with unadulterated 180 proof awesome” DEATH WISH Express is a replica of a 1964 Watson Indycar, and you can drive it on the street.
You thought our find last week, the dry-lake torpedo with the plexiglass face, was horrifying … our gem today will simply make you dry heave with delight. You see, the lakester last week was designed to go fast. Today’s Comuta-Car was designed to be only slightly faster than walking, and far less convenient. The little electric car was less of a glorified golf cart (that would be heaping too much praise on it) and more like a little blister pack of death. It’s 6 HP GE electric motor could propel it to a top speed of 39 MPH, allowing any 8 year old girl on a Big Wheel to humiliate it downhill.
Today’s Implement of Destruction: Honda-Powered Comuta-Car
Possibly you’ve heard of this before, but it’s a new one to us. We’re familiar with the Top Fuel dragsters running the quarter on asphalt, as most people are, but on sand? What’s going on here? Those look like tractor tires on the back of that rig! Is this an elaborate joke? Not at all – a growing sport, the sand drags date from the ’60s.
Overshadowed by the goings-on in Geneva and the endless stream of tragedy constantly striking the auto industry, the 2009 Autorama kicked off in Detroit last week with little mention in the headlines. A collection of the most beautiful, impressively built hot rods in the country, Doug Cooper’s 1932 Ford B400 “Deucenberg” V8 immediately stood out as the king of the beasts. Painstakingly built by Alan Johnson of Johnson’s Hot Rod Shop in Gadsden, Alabama, Cooper boasted proudly, “This car is literally unique, and it has one-off parts from bumper to bumper.” Elegantly crafted, Cooper’s Deucenberg V8 is an exercise in taste, featuring a period-accurate custom-angled body, cloth-covered aluminum lift-off roof, sumptuous leather interior, and the crown jewel: a 405-horsepower LS6 engine. A gorgeous, rare breed indeed, the Deucenberg dazzled the Autorama judges too, leading it to receive one of the highest honors in the rodding circle, the 2009 Detroit Autorama Ridler Award. Reserved exclusively for rods making their inaugural auto show appearances, the Ridler Award recognizes excellence in craftsmanship and design.
As a the grand prize winner, Doug Cooper received Ridler’s generous prize package, including $10,000 cash and a GM-furnished new General Motors Performance Parts engine, jacket and trophy.
Swedish design company, Vizualtech Design, unleashed their conceptual engineering prowess on the newest, smallest addition to Volvo’s lineup, and the result is…interesting. A 2009 Volvo C30 at its core, the Vizualtech C30 Racer has been outfitted with a massive rear spoiler, bulging side-sills, a chunky rear-diffuser, and a heavy-duty front spoiler designed specifically to improve downforce. Simply a design firm and thus lacking the resources to breathe life into any such ambitious project, Vizualtech’s C30 racer is merely a rendering of what a DTM or Le Mans-ready C30 could look like if ever manufactured. While undeniably an impressive ride, we hope that should the Vizualtech C30 Racer dream ever be realized, someone takes the initiative to swap out the C30’s 227-horsepower turbocharged 5-banger with an engine that could actually generate enough downforce to necessitate the need for that massive front spoiler (no offense Volvo, you know we love you).
The hot rod revival movement has finally extended from the traditional 40s and 50s cars into the sci-fi 60s moonpods this year. The bubble top is back, so they say, and Aaron Grote decided to build one of his own. But instead of mimicking the existing Ed Roth machines that are all now in private collections, he just used the cars of that era as inspiration. Thus was born the Atomic Punk.
“It took a lot of time and effort, and I ran out of money on it several times. I had to sell a couple of my cars and a kidney to get the money to finish it, but when I finally got to get in it and do that big smoky burnout, I think it was worth it.” This car is more than just Ed Roth-esque, it’s David Lee Roth-esque: where do you think he got the name Atomic Punk?
