C-3PO's Car found Parked in LA called Dub Robot

C-3PO's Dub Robot art car was seen parked in Santa Monika some weeks ago, photographed by Ellen Bloom on her LA beat. Mystery solved, C-3PO drives an old golden Volvo.

Photos by Ellen Bloom

Volvo Tank and Helicopter Banger Rally Art Car

End2End is a Land's End to John O'Groats banger rally in the UK. The event is based around camping rather than hotels, although we don't mind teams doing guest houses if camping is too rough.

However, we do encourage caravans on this event. Its a Banger Rally meets Carry On Camping.

With that said, Team Atlantic Booze Cruisers took up the challenge of making a caravan theme for their art car and caravan. They took a perfectly good volvo with a camper and turned into a Tank with a gun turret of unknown fire power. The caravan was made to look a like a bloated RAF helicopter. Not sure if it will ever take to the sky's, but I am sure its very comfy on the inside. Bernard Montgomery would be proud of these troops.

Only the mind of a warped individual (Rob) could possibly come up with the Volvo Tank and Helicopter.

You decide:

a) we like how your mind works, Rob
b) we are actually quite disturbed how your mind works, Rob
or c) hey, I can do better than that!

Enjoy the build pictures!

The Sauna - Riding the Alps in Style

The Sauna was built from a Volvo 240 and taken on CzechWrecks 2009, a 1500 mile 4 day journey starting from Calais, France through Swiss and Italian Alps all the way to Prague, Czech Republic.

What we have here is about 1/3rd of a ton of wood paneling being applied to the Volvo.

If you are wondering whether this wood had any impact on performance, I am assured it did. What performance they had to start with, remember that Volvo 240 are agricultural at best, that performance was soon zeroed.

Chris and Tom and their team built this car to raise money for charity and an opportunity to travel in their bath towels riding the sauna over some of the highest passes in Europe.

StreetSafari Rally Art Cars from the UK Now a Regular Feature!!!

StreetSafari, organizer of the world's best banger rallies, has teamed with Art Car Central to showcase some of the countless creations of our teams over the years.

For those unfamiliar with banger rallies, here is a quick introduction: buy a car on a budget (£250 or $500), repair it, make it legal for the road, take it on a journey across Europe or the States with other like minded people. Whether the car will end up in a foreign scrap yard or be taken back home is up to the team and is usually anybody's guess.

As one might imagine, part of the challenge is simply getting the car to the finish line. For most teams, the challenge starts much earlier. What seems to happen between buying the car and getting it ready for the start line is subject to paint, imagination and -- probably -- alcohol.

We get to see everything. You name it, we've seen it. If there was ever a famous car on television or cinema, we've seen at least five examples of it on our events. General Lee, Starsky & Hutch, the A Team, Ghostbusters, all done to death. We see rally themes from Audi, Skoda, Martini, Pink Pig, and just about any other you can think of. The quality of the theme seems to vary with the quantity of what the team has drunk, as much as with their creative ability.

Sometimes a team will just paint or decorate the car to a theme they made up. That's where we get the stand out cars.

Today's fabulous art car is a 1992 Volvo 480, with possibly the most intricate design we have ever seen in all the years and events that we've done. Its nickname on the event was simply "the Rorschach car" and everyone knew which that meant. When we first saw this car we made enquiries that it was being brought back to the UK after event, as it would be a crying shame to send this car to the crusher before it had enough time to be appreciated for the masterpiece that it was.

The story behind this art car is that two friends had bought it but had no idea what to do for a theme until they bumped into a rather talented artist friend. He then proceeded to draw all over the car and took about three weeks to do it. We believe the car was then sealed in a lacquer to give it a lasting finish, and we think the car is now in Glasgow somewhere.

From a distance, the drawing appears as one giant doodle. The closer you look, however, the more diverse and detailed the images become. A real piece of car art if ever we saw one.

By Justin Clements of StreetSafari
 

10 Insane SpongeBob Art Cars - Insanity Intervention in the House

By orbaddict	By Lotta of Mom O Matic
By BinaryApe	By Druffel
by Colwyn Bay	By Viz79
via	By ebi debi
via	don't know

If you are a normal parent you probably have kids songs running through your head at all times. I just happen to get Sponge Bob Stuck in my head today and the only cure was just to find all the Sponge Bob "Art" Cars and post them. Its not that the SpongeBob art cars are insane but you go insane even contemplating doing this to your car. It's like the song never go away...ever. These people clearly have kids and its obvious that they are insane and need intervention big time.

Mercedes Bonz Art Car - New meaning to the word road kill

by surlygrrrl [ELBfoto].

by Delta Niner.

This Volvo is covered in hundreds of bones is called the Mercedes Bobz. Road kill just took a different meaning.

Artistic Licence - The Art and Adventures of Steve Porter

Artistic Licence Art Car By Steve Porter

Art History By Steve Porter

I found this Volvo Art Car this morning called Artistic Licence by Steve Porter. He created it to promote his new music album and also created a video featuring his car. During the summer of 2007, Steve went on tour around Europe in his ArtCar. In total he travelled 3461 miles and visited eight different countries. I like what he wrote on his web site:

"Once upon a time there was a boy who loved making up art and music.He had lots of different ideas and spent many years creating them. Some ideas worked well, some not so well.But he kept on and on, with new songs, pictures and inventions.

When he was more grown up, the boy realised that making things up was the best way for him to feel real and alive. So he tried his very best to make his living through his ideas and creations.

The story continues..."

He also created these really cool custom demo CD packages to send his music out in the mail. He calls it "the greatest demo tape ever". The CD case for his music looks like and old school tape and then stuffed into a custom bubble wrap envelope. I agree this is really a great idea!!!

Thanks Steve, I love your work and I wish you the best in all your endeavors:)

Art Car with Plenty Of Trunk Space

Gregory Beylerian is the creator of this 1968 Volvo that was initially supposed to be race car. A couple of years later he found all these elephants in the trash near a toy factory in downtown L.A. and that is when he decided to rescue and recycle so he covered his car in about 100 stuffed pachyderms–he also added graffiti-style decorative paint, and his life has been a circus ever since. That is what I call wildlife conservation.

False Voodoo Art Car

Photos taken at Art Car Fest 07 In San Francisco by addadada

This amazing volvo stationwagon art car comes from Sebastopol CA, created by artist Art Moura, who mainly paints sculptured recycled materials such as drift wood, plastic dolls and other found objects. So far he has produced a large body of art that can be seen on his My Tribe account. Below are some of his thoughts about his car:

I stated painting my car New Years Eve 2006. My friend, Patrick Amiot came over that morning with paint and told me it was time for me to paint my car. So I painted into the New Year. I later added painted dolls heads that I had about and slowly added other art pieces that I make. Its been a great way to have people see my art without going through the gallery and coffee house channels. I have a few names for it, Kali Eating Evil, The Birth of Venise Over and Over and Fog Vodooism which is the type of Art I create, a false vodooism, cast away consumer fetishes made into powerless gods of the voodoo fog from a mind lacking science but believing in nothing else. Art Moura