Cars become canvasses for those living the life boheme.
Story by Neil Beschle
Photos by Alicia Greenwell
Kevin Lipps drives his Ford Taurus to work every day, and at each traffic light and stop sign, passersby stare. Lipps’ hatchback resembles a battle-ravaged spaceship, complete with metallic paint job, replica guns, cannons, and spray-painted foam rubber strips that make the vehicle look like it was welded together by the mechanics from Mad Max.
Lipps is part of the West Coast art car community: a subculture of artists and car modifiers who seek to inspire, entertain, and capture the attention of the masses. He has been creating art cars for over twenty years, gaining national coverage from AutoWeek magazine and a clip on the Canadian documentary program Weird Wheels, for past creations including a tiki-themed Volkswagon Bug and a van inspired by the paint-drip style artwork of Jackson Pollock.
Lipps is driven to transform his cars into works of moving art to show people there are other options—a way to make your car truly yours.
“It’s a canvas and it’s public art,” says Lipps, a resident of Eugene’s culturally rich Whiteaker neighborhood. Lipps creates artwork ranging from paintings to sculptures, carvings to drawings—his transformed cars are yet another form of his aesthetic expression.
In 1908, Ford Motor Company introduced the Model T, more or less establishing a universal standard for cars. And in defiance, art car artists have been modifying their vehicles ever since. “Since cars were invented, people have been doing stuff to them,” Lipp says. “It’s just another medium.”
Art cars were commonly seen throughout the 1960s, with the DayGlo sporting Volkswagen Bugs and vans associated with the hippie movement. John Lennon’s famous Rolls-Royce Phantom V and Janis Joplin’s psychedelically painted Porsche were other notable icons in the art car world, as were the legendary Oscar Mayer “Wienermobile” and the annual BMW Art Car project featuring modern artists like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.
Lipps credits American documentary filmmaker and art car artist Harrod Blank with organizing many art car communities in Texas and California. Blank’s documentaries on art car culture gave the art form a more national spotlight.
Co-founder of ArtCar Fest, one of the largest annual art car gatherings on the West Coast, Blank has been at the forefront of the American art car phenomenon for the last twenty years. His cinematic work includes his 1992 documentary Wild Wheels, his 1998 follow-up film Driving the Dream, and his most recent production Automorphosis, which premiered in 2008. Blank began his maverick career as car artist, transforming his 1965 Volkswagen Beetle into his first work of moving art: a beach ball-TV-chalkboard chimera boasting a bumper made of plastic fruit and rubber chickens. His notable creations over the years include his famous Camera Van, a vehicle entirely covered in working cameras, which has shot some 15,000 frames of observers so far.
Art on Wheels: Taking Creativity to the Streets
Lipps’ friend and neighbor Tyler Runyan fell into the art car community, setting out to modify his first car under the guidance of Lipps. The two share a backyard, which is decked with artwork. Masks hang from fence posts; a tool shed is packed with art projects boasting various works in transition; and sculptures and ornaments are displayed in every corner of the yard. This is where Runyan’s first four-wheeled mobile modification was born.
After roughly 120 hours of labor, using a selection of foam rubber, silicon adhesive, plumbing insulation, and a few cans of spray paint, Runyan transformed his 2001 Suzuki Swift into an anglerfish on wheels. Approximately 3,500 to 3,700 scales now decorate his car, complete with a working light dangling just above the windshield distinguishing the deep-sea creature from any other fish in the sea.
Runyan showed off the “fish” for the first time last fall at a gathering in Sacramento, California.
“There’s nothing better than the moment you start grinding on your car and there’s that point of no return,” Lipps says. “Then you really have to finish it! You can’t resell it at that point. You might as well turn it into something.”
Lipps and Runyan are careful when selecting what materials to use in their modifications as they drive their cars outside year-round. They also make sure not to use materials that will weigh the cars down.
“It’s got to be cheap, light weight, and able to weather the elements,” Lipps says.
Both Lipps and Runyan use their moving pieces of art as their primary transportation source, stressing functionality alongside with their artistic endeavors.
“My art car is a daily driver, and I will always make daily drivers,” Lipps says. “I’m not going to make a parade float, and I don’t drive in a parade when I go to work.”
Bystanders on the street have mixed responses when they see Lipps and Runyan cruise by in their original car designs. A lot of them smile. Some of them glare. Some just don’t know what to think. Lipps and Runyan enjoy all kinds of reactions.
Runyan has a sense of humor when driving his “fish” around. “I look in my rearview mirror sometimes, and I see people laughing,” Runyan says, “and that’s all good with me.”
The two have sacrificed a potential resale value by modifying their vehicles, but they say that it’s worth it.
“It would be great if everybody just painted his or her car,” Lipps says, “but it’s just such an investment a lot of people just can’t deface something like that. Once you get over that, then it’s a lot of fun.”
Runyan hopes that his first art car won’t be his last. He is currently brainstorming what his next vehicle and concept will be.
“I think I might stick to an aquatic theme next time around,” Runyan says, as he envisions a large octopus wrapping its tentacles around the roof of a small sedan.
“This is definitely something I could do again. It was kind of frustrating during parts of it,” he says, “but it’s all on there now, and I’m not about to take it off.”
Lipps and Runyan encourage anyone to try creating an art car, saying that the act of personalizing our vehicles could bring art to the streets and make car travel more fun.
Long a materialistic status symbol for the American consumer, these two “avant car” renegades seek to change the way people see their autos—less as capitalist icons and more of a statement of individual freedom and expression.
“Art cars should be everywhere. Everybody should do one,” Lipps says. “I’d rather see a freeway full of art cars than a freeway full of yuppie status symbols.”
