After judging at the Arse Freeze-a-Palooza 24 Hours of LeMons near Bakersfield, I headed north to visit my family in the San Francisco Bay Area before heading back to Denver. Naturally, I had to stop by at least one junkyard, and— small world!— I ran into a car that looked very familiar.
Yes, this is the very same ’69 Mustang that I photographed in my old neighborhood in Alameda and immortalized in a DOTS post on Jalopnik. Nearly two years later, things haven’t gone so well for this art car.
The car that was once a regular at California art-car events and a rolling political statement (which brings up a question: Why don’t we ever see right-wing art cars? Probably for the same reason there are no right-wing mimes) got towed away and dragged to a South Bay self-serve junkyard, where it sits in the “fixer uppers” lot. Since even the most ardent Mustang fanatic wouldn’t pay more than scrap value for this thing, its next stop will be the Ford section of the yard, followed by a trip to The Crusher a couple of months later. This is what happened with the legendary Groovalicious Purple Princess of Peace, which ended up in the very same San Jose yard.
Much of the stuff that was glued all over the car when I saw it on the street is gone now, no doubt knocked off during its long downward spiral, but you get the idea.
Though I approve of the concept of the art car, I’m not a fan of the “crazy hoarder with glue gun” approach. Still, I’d prefer that a car like this remain on the street, shaking up the squares.
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The Chinese will scrape all that junk off and rebox as novelties.
And maybe give them a nice coat of lead paint!
I saw a lot full of these art cars a couple of summers ago, one rainy day in the Fremont district of Seattle not far from the statue of Lenin. The blue glow was almost visible from the freeway.
Creepy- looking thing.
I wonder if The Crusher will vomit when it comes time to eat that thing…
Say what you want, but there’s nothing artsy about that. Looks like a pile of trash.
What about the piles of trash that are art?
That would be The Heidelberg Project in Detroit. When you reach the bottom, all that is left for an art medium seems to be trash and a bit of colorful paint.
They’re usually just piles of trash.
How come “art car” always seems to mean “bunch of crap glued to a beater?”
which brings up a question: Why don’t we ever see right-wing art cars? Probably for the same reason there are no right-wing mimes
What a coincidence. Today I posted some pics of Matt Donohue’s “Jackson Pollocktik Project” cars to illustrate a post about the new Dodge Dart. In my original post on the Pollocktik cars, I said:
Matt makes art cars. Yes, I know, the car culture’s equivalent to mimes.
Even if Murilee and I aren’t on the same page politically, we can see eye to eye on a lot of things.
Ronnie, That is art on top of art!
Dolls and skulls, what a nice combination. Why couldn’t the owner have gone and done this to an old Volvo or some pieceajunk 4 door from the 70’s? No Mustang should ever be treated this way.
Even a local brain-dead hillbilly wouldn’t place that car atop cement blocks in the front yard for use as a yard ornament.
Thus indicating the creator is even “less” than the incredibly trashiness of the many sub-humans existing within this locale.
I’m all shook up. It’s just … shocking, and … too cool .. and … too much
This car probably looks like a GT500KR Shelby if you drop the right kind of acid.
I’ll take the 3.20:1 8″ rearend and…uh…that’s about it, thanks.
Right wing art truck:
http://i639.photobucket.com/albums/uu118/Trigger01Ranger2/BadkarmasTruck.jpg
They vary by the model of truck, vintage, size of lift, brand of tires, type of camo patern and height of lift. The camo truck is the most overt and common variant of right wing art vehicle. Other examples include the common lifted truck. Accessorize with special bumper stickers, confederate flags, “gun control means hitting your target”, “W, the president” etc.
Nah – this vehicle is far more similar to someone who plays soccer wearing a soccer jersey on their day off. This person uses this vehicle for a favorite sport.
Using this logic, I guess the Mustang with the bones and dolls covering it must belong to someone who works for Dr. Kervorkian, an Obama Death Panel, or Planned Parenthood.
What about the best right wing art cars ever? The ones hand painted with all sorts for bible verse, political crackpot theories and the like? Usually I see them based on vans and old motor homes, though there is a VW bug in North Hollywood I see all the time…
There was a person in my town (I never saw them, just their car) who took what was then a new Ford Focus in bright yellow and added Bible verses to the car’s body with what appeared to be tempera paints. But after a while, the kookiness set in, I don’t mean that as an insult to religious people, but this person was a little off. That they chose Bible verses didn’t bother me in the least, (John 3:16, etc.), they were just proseltyzing, not hurting anybody.
But, they started adding on to the car with papier-mache to get it to really stand out. And it did. The car took on several themes over time, and some of them were even seasonal, i.e., Christmas trees, etc.
The one that made me scratch my head was the papier-mache appendage that made the car appear to have a mohawk. The Bible verse didn’t really seem to relate the ‘sculpture’, I think it was just their way of attracting attention.
This went on for about 9 years, but I noticed a couple of years ago that I hadn’t seen the car around anywhere (it used to be parked all over Grand Rapids). I don’t know what’s become of the car or it’s owners. I wish I had taken photos of it as it evolved, it would have been fun to have.
I hope they’re OK, where ever they are.
I’m a Ford man, and even I say to CRUSH IT! Get it out of its misery! I’ll take those Centerlines, though…
This car was until recently parked near my house. I wondered what had happened to it … thought probably some of the more snooty neighbors had complained.
The reason there are so few right wing art cars is because almost all conservatives respect property and would never do this to a car they paid for.
It takes a hell of a lot of disrespect to do this to a car, then drive it around to see the reaction of strangers.
Left wingers intend to insult onlookers, while right wingers insult onlookers unintentionally.
One reason why I dislike many art cars is that they’re a left handed critique of cars themselves. I guess there’s supposed to be some irony involved.