War veteran Kent Bash saw the Volkswagen Beetle as a moving canvas for anti-Vietnam War art.
Charles Hunt saw his purple Mercury Comet, known as “the Grape,” as a magnet for an assemblage of rotting fish, aging skulls and hairless Barbies.
For Southern California drivers, style from Stuttgart or Detroit won’t do. Art cars, a movement partially launched from Los Angeles, are the way to go.
“The automobile is used as an extension of a person’s personality,” said Dick Messer, director of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. “The fact is, an auto is you, you are your automobile.”
While Messer contends the art car phenomenon largely began in Munich with BMW’s patronage of 15 art cars by famous artists in 1972, others credit L.A.’s car scene in the 1960s.
In 1968, Bash returned from the war to plaster six VW bugs with a resin montage of rock stars, peace signs, pop symbols and the hint of reefer.
“The first time I put these on the street, I got three tickets on the way to work and three on the way home,” said Bash, 55, whose fifth Beetle is sawed in half in his West Hills studio.
But it was worth it. While each creation took 5,000 to 6,000 hours to get the likes of John F. and Bobby Kennedy or Johnny Carson to grin off engine decks, Bash asks, what better way to bring art to Los Angeles?
Beth Secor of the Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, who rode in Houston’s first art-car parade in 1986, said many credit art cars with sprouting in Los Angeles. But Harrod Blank, the Berkeley art-car enthusiast with numerous documentaries on the subject, said the 1960s spawned many art cars.
“Not only do art cars question the value of the automotive industry,” said Blank, guest curator for the Petersen show, “but they express the values and dreams of the individual.”
For Los Angeles shoe store owner John Goli, that means fashioning his 600-cc 1971 Honda into a giant Vasque hiking boot, with laces, eyelets and a Vibram sole that hides each tire.
For Sherman Oaks resident Bob Valdez, that means converting a rusting 1939 General Motors Futurliner into an art deco lounge on wheels.
Valdez, a 59-year-old hairdresser who taught himself to weld to restore one of 12 vehicles made for the “GM Parade of Progress” traveling exhibit of future high-tech, has nearly $200,000 invested in his dream.
For Hunt, an art car has meant a metamorphosing statement since he picked up his 1964 Grape nearly 14 years ago.
“If it wasn’t purple, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” said Hunt, 37, formerly of Simi Valley, and a plasterer.
First some stucco got stuck to it. Then he whacked off the roof. When a friend dared him to attach a steer head, he created a hood ornament. The rest is a history of steel parts, boat parts and animal remains, including a sea bass head in a cage–downwind of the driver.
“I never walk by it without thinking of something I can do to it,” he said. “People give stuff, they take stuff. I once had a raccoon skull, painted black: Someone stole it. “
