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.

1. Christophe Desse

http://www.xtrm3d.com

The words “affordable” and “Italian” generally don’t play well in the same sandbox. Italian sports cars as a whole bring up thoughts of big dollars, big repair bills and big ego’s, that is, until now. I recently had the opportunity to view one of these rare Italian beasties in person and was pleasantly surprised by what I found out, that being, that most anyone whose employed can own one.

What you see here is a 1960 Alfa Romeo 2000 and it is a beauty. Think of it as the Mazda Miata’s illegitimate great grandfather. These cars, although rare are actually quite affordable with the price spectrum ranging from about 20k-40k which really isn’t that bad when you consider this car was designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro… never heard of him? Well, he’s the guy who also designed the Ferrari 250 Berlinetta Bertone, De Tomaso Mangusta, Iso Grifo and Maserati Ghibli, so in short… he’s got mad skills.

Performance wise the little Alfa is no pavement shredder. It’s little four cylinder cast iron mill churns out about 105 HP @ 5300 RPM and sounds glorious, not to bad for a car that weighs less than 2300 lbs. Although, if you want to get really crazy the later 2600 models did have an 2.3L inline-6 that produced 145 HP… BOOYA!! Make no mistake, these little Alfa’s are all Italian, all sports car and everything you’d need to fit in to any car show anywhere in the world. So before you go out and spend that 30k on some new pasta rocket or strudel wagon, take a look around and think outside the box, because if you do, you may just be amazed at what you’ll find.

As a bittersweet farewell to one of the most tumultuous years in automotive history, RideLust presents to you a re-cap of all the biggest industry events in 2009…and a few that slipped in under editorial bias.

Rick Wagoner, Bob Nardelli, and Alan Mulally spent weeks feigning humility and destitution in three piece Brooks Brothers suits in an attempt to wrangle a billion-dollar loan from an apparently benevolent Uncle Sam. Eventually, the government acquiesced and agreed to bail out both General Motors and Chrysler so as not to interrupt their steady production of poorly built, aesthetically unappealing vehicles.

Stunt double Ben Collins outed himself as Top Gear’s infamous masked driver, The Stig, potentially blowing the sweetest gig on planet Earth. Rather than kill him off, Top Gear attempted to counter the rumors by fingering (::snicker::) legendary racer Michael Schumacher as The Stig. Gearheads in America with an Internet connection that’s too slow to cope with downloading the weekly BBC broadcast still don’t give a rat’s ass.

There was some sort of F1 scandal involving Renault intentionally throwing the Singapore Gran Prix, but we were too immersed in our rally obsession to care. Just Google it or something.

As per their plan to cut costs and pretend to pay back taxpayers, GM made the logical decision to axe one of the only remaining brands that consumers still cared about, Pontiac. Shortly after the announcement, rumors began to circulate that the late John DeLorean’s company was interested in purchasing the rights to produce the Pontiac Solstice. The idea, much like the DMC-12, was short lived.

Drawing heavily from the blatantly phallic styling of the Ambiguously Gay Duo’s car, Porsche released it’s first 4-door sedan, the Panamera.

More grist for the mill in the ongoing debate about the aftereffects of Cash for Clunkers and the current recession: Kelley Blue Book reports that small car sales unexpectedly rose in September, after tumbling precipitously when gas prices stabilized. This is despite the fact that the Cash for Clunkers program ended on August 24th, and that overall sales of new cars have been down after the program. This also contradicts a recent survey among new car buyers that suggested that large numbers of the C4C buyers who purchased small cars were unsatisfied with their purchase and would buy a larger car next time.

In Wilmington, North Carolina, Alliance Credit Union will be rewarding the egregious aesthetic taste of Mr. Saintard at the awards ceremony for the first Ugly Car Contest. Aimed at helping one lucky driver ditch his jalopy in the charitable spirit inspired by the Cash for Clunkers program, Alliance opted to bestow one lucky (or unlucky, depending on your perspective) winner to receive a $5,000 cash prize to be put towards the purchase of a new car or a gallon of Bondo and a few cans of spray paint.

While it doesn’t seem to be in miserable enough shape to warrant a five grand prize – especially not when compared to the other truly hideous contestants – Mr. Saintard’s scratched up Saturn apparently offended the senses of enough voters to earn him the crowd favorite and Alliance’s Grand Prize. Hit the jump to check out photos of few of the more, ah, deserving vehicles.

Comrades, if you think the Jeep started the SUV craze, you’re wrong. It was in fact the glorious people’s GAZ M-72. While the Jeep was indeed a popular 4WD vehicle, it wasn’t until the Grand Wagoneer came around in 1963 that the United States fully embraced the full-on SUV bodystyle. But in this particular arms race, we were behind the Ruskies, who’d created this trucklet behind the iron curtain by stripping down a GAZ “Pobeda” (“Victory”) car shell, and grafting it onto a GAZ-69 military 4WD truck chassis.

Today, at least one Chinese auto manufacturer is one step closer to strengthening the quality and integrity of their brand without wasting millions on, you know, actually building a better product. While we all expected Volvo to be the first brand to be raped and pillaged of its technology, in a surprising twist of fate it seems as though the honor of one’s hard-earned reputation comprised will be awarded to Volvo’s fellow Swedish automaker, Saab.

Classic Porsche 911s have been in the midst of a retro-mod renaissance lately, with lots of money going into taking fuzzy, sentimental visions of grainy oversaturated ’70s awesomeness and transforming it into a real-world rolling art. R-Gruppe cars, love ‘em or hate ‘em, are the ultimate Porkers in this genre. However, Singer Vehicle Design of Los Angeles has jumped into the fray, seriously reworking an air-cooled long-wheelbase 911 into a modern performance car, doing what Porsche couldn’t (as they switched to water-cooling with the 996). As Singer puts it, “… have the evolved water-cooled 911’s proven more enjoyable? Is the drive more fulfilling? What of the magic behind the wheel?” It’s inarguable that the package Singer has put together answers all of those questions. Click through for a HUGE gallery of pics and more info.

You order a bedroom set for your son, but when it arrives, the mattress you thought would be included in the deal is missing. What do you do? If you’re Robert Caton of Hampshire, UK, you guzzle two bottles of cheap whiskey, hop in your ‘83 Rolls-Royce, and plow through the store in a drunken, poorly conceived rampage. Oh, and not on the first try either – he made two unsuccessful attempts to raze the store before finally succeeding in careening the Roller through the window, causing roughly $100,000 worth of damage.

ICON, the Los Angeles company that has won our hearts and minds by hand-building some of the most exquisite and perfectly updated FJ40 “recreations,” is firing up their wickedly creative minds to build a bespoke vehicle inspired by the Jeep CJ3 – called the ICON CJ3B. The name’s not terribly original but at least there’s no doubt what they’re trying to sell you. ICON has crafted this baby from the ground up, building it all themselves, and if you’ve seen an ICON before you know they do some incredible work. All we have are renderings right now, but it’s not exactly like the styling is going to be a make-or-break for this particular little terror. Make the jump for details and more photos.