Recap from Cruise Your Illusion 1: Sure it’s unconventional to take a perfectly good car and paint it or better yet, glue junk to it, but art cars aren’t conventional. As the car commercial would whisper in a deep voice: art cars break monotony. As for people glueing objects to their cars, I’m fascinated with the obvious. How do the plastic figurines and other decorations stay stuck? I delved into this when I talked to the owner of a car called “The Trophy Wife” and I saw the actual glue used for the Space Taxi but I’m still mystified. If stuff goes flying it goes flying. Hopefully it won’t put out an eye, cause a traffic accident or ruin the artistic merits of the vehicle.

After years of capturing images of art cars it’s time to unleash them. I’m always hoping for information on the origins of these arty automobiles. My recollections are often about where I first glimpsed the vehicle. The results of my thoughts is an online art car rally something like what happens when vintage cars gather at the Portland International Raceway but they’re just gathering here in cyberspace.

Double Deck Me

This double bubble decker vehicle is more art car as a reflection of art in architecture. It has a sculptural feel and it may have been produced using less glue, but it is an art car. I was also curious, when it showed up in the Kenton neighborhood, how the second roof functioned. It looks to be more of an extended sun roof.

On a random walk that led us deep into a more rustic section of the Arnold Creek neighborhood, I spotted a pick up truck on a gravel road with a teddy bears roped to the grill. I was excited enough about that phenomenon. Then after getting closer, I realized it wasn’t just a bear toting pick up, it was an art car and the proper art application technique had been executed at a high level. That’s a fancy way of saying it had a bunch of toys glued to the hood. There’s joy in these objects. It’s about recognizing plastic characters, pondering the arrangements that creates dramatic scenes and witnessing these interactions frozen in time. It’s not a random as it appears. There has to be planning in the design or none of it would make sense.

Slick and Arty

On my way to cover a move by bike story in the Concordia neighborhood, I took a quick look and a few photos on a rainy fall day. The rain didn’t dampen my spirits so much but it threw a wet blanket on the camera phone’s ability to focus. This car proved a classic in the art car genre with paint and bigger sized toys and even dinosaurs. Sure, it always has me imaging a scenario similar to one I could imagine where toys get blown out of Santa’s sleigh. These are great toys whether they’re on the car or airborne about the highway. I know there’s some strong epoxies out there and I guess I have to put my faith in that for the sake of all art cars.

Space Taxi

At this moment, we’re investigating the whereabouts of the Space Taxi. This summer there was a report that the car was down for the count, thereby taking the art with it. There will be a full report as soon as we can make one up, I mean research one. There’s a slim chance that the space taxi might still make the drive down your street or be seen at the Fred Meyer’s parking lot.

Trophy Wife

I couldn’t let it go with out posting a couple more pictures of my favorite area art cars like the Space Taxi, above, and the Trophy Wife. It’s really the best use of all the trophies in the world that people eventually out grow. **And yeah, making fun of Trophy Wives is also hilarious although the joke might be over their heads visually and languagely.

*****

**Mrs. Yuckmow, I feel justified in using the word “and” at the beginning of that last sentence. I’m not being lazy, I just think from a comedic stand point I had to inject a bit of slackness into my paragraph. I know, you’re looking beyond that at my use of that non word, languagely. Hardly a proper adverb. You might even frown upon the use of adverbs. Sometimes the invention of a word needs to happen.