Graffiti Fiat Art Car

I found this little Graffiti Fiat beauty the other day, Love it.

Italian Job Police Rally Art Car

Today's delectable car is a lowly Fiat Tipo Polizia cop car look alike.

This car deserves a mention because it really was beautifully executed as a replica, so well done, that every time we saw it on an event our hearts ran cold "uhoh cops". You see we never like meeting local cops on the events, cops mean trouble for the most part. We simply want to pass through a town, not get arrested and locked up, waiting for "Fair Trials Abroad" to come to our rescue.

The team (who built Thunderbird 4 the following year) took a picture of a real Italian Polizia Tipo and copied it absolutely perfectly. Graphics were copied, they even had a blue light on the top (highly illegal), siren, they even dressed up as Italian cops.

If you saw this in the corner of your eye, it really did grab you, in a bad bad way. It was only once you focussed on the two faux Policemen larking around that your heart would drop from it's 300 beats per second and you'd remember "thank god, it's only Team Maestro Masters".

It has to be said that we did get revenge on them - they did not want to be seen one morning when some real Italian cops would be in attendance. Copying foreign cops probably isn't wise, and the Maestro Masters team were bricking it. But we assured them, that nothing untoward would happen to them. In all honesty, we didn't know what would happen to them, we just knew that we were safe.

But after they had spent 3 days scaring the life out of us, we were willing to take the chance they wouldn't be arrested.

In a wonderful twist, the cops actually loved the Tipo, and apologised that literally, 2 months ago they retired their identical Fiat Tipo Polizia car.

This was an unexpected high point, with a significant low point to come.

The car was seized in Rome and dragged to a police station. When the team went to collect the car they were promptly arrested and interrogated for a few hours. Only after chatting up a hot Italian woman, who happened to be a senior detective were they released from custody with no charges.

The car was not released, and we can only think was eventually crushed by the Italian authorities.

Farewell Fiat Tipo Polizia, but you do live on on the internet.

(If you are wondering why we have a picture of a toy car of the original - it's because we couldn't find an original picture of a real Polizia cop car).

By Justin Clements Street Safari
Original posted on Art Car Central

Patricia Van Lubeck Dazzling Array of Art Cars

Citroen Visa Art Car By Patricia Van Lubeck

I found this really amazing looking Citroen Visa Art Car all the way from New Zealand by artist Patricia Van Lubeck . This Painted Citroen art car is based on the use of opposite colors that make it really hard to focus and in that note she succeed in giving me headache:)

About Patricia
In such a short time, Patricia Van Lubeck has quickly become a leading neo-surreal artists. Born in Amsterdam in 1965, Patricia’s life has quite recently changed dramatically. She used to be book-keeper until 2000 when she started the 21st century by becoming a full time professional artist. She moved to the Bay of Plenty in New Zealand in 2005. Since then her work has taken a new direction. Although her style is often regarded as surreal, her work does not strictly fall in that category. Her paintings are apparently simple in composition but executed amazingly detailed and visually very dynamic. Her paintings have realistic elements, but above all an alienating atmosphere. Her works in recent years show landscapes and weird plant species which she calls her psychedelic gardens. `` I consider my work an invitation to explore the ways we experience our environment. My inspiration comes from the ordinary things around me, the artist in me just sees things in an unusual perspective. Picture a baker looking at a corn field. He sees bread, cookies and pies. I see shapes, patterns and colors. I like to zoom in on an everyday object such as the pins of a hair brush and imagine a tiny landscape with rows of hairy trees.’’ Remarkably, Patricia is a self-taught and self-starting artist. She sets a high benchmark for all her works and seeks to achieve a high level of craftsmanship. It takes her up to eight hours just to prepare the surface on some canvases. Then she oils up to 10 layers to achieve rich colors and a smooth finish. ``I am always trying to achieve high contrast within an unlimited color range. I love working with geometric patterns. Before I started painting on canvas, my cars had always been willing victims to this passion. Consequently patterns, natural or artificial, form the foundation of a lot of my images.’’ Due to her time-consuming technique Patricia is only able to create about 10 paintings a year. She loves painting at night in her rural studio setting with no distractions – just the call of the ruru (a New Zealand native owl) to keep her company. Patricia thrives on the repetitiveness of her patterns. She feels the calming aura in concentrating with a small brush in her ‘psychedelic botanic garden’. Since 2002, Patricia has exhibited in The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Portugal, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand.

2010 grantee of the Pollock-Krasner foundation in New York
finalist 2010 NZ Adam portraiture awards, 2007 NZ Painting and Printmaking Award and 2006 James Wallace Art Awards
2nd place Tivoli Audio PAL Case design contest

Citroen Visa Art Car By Patricia Van Lubeck

Citroen Visa Art Car By Patricia Van Lubeck

My boxy little Panda was just the right car for an intricate tartan pattern. It took some careful planning and a couple of days of concentrated painting but in the end all my efforts payed off..... the car looked like a shopping bag on wheels! We crossed many borders all over Europe with the Tartan Panda without being stopped by customs once. This is the ideal design for smuggling purposes!

Fiat Panda Tartan Art Car By Patricia Van Lubeck

Fiat Panda Tartan Art Car By Patricia Van Lubeck

Dazzle Painted Cars
'Dazzle painting' was a camouflage technique used by allied forces during World war I. Ships were painted in large geometrical patterns and contrasting colors in an attempt to confuse the German navy. Most important function of this camouflage was to disguise the front of the ship and its sailing direction to enemy submarines. Although visually very effective, sadly this kind of painting did not prove to be a major advantage in battle. There's a good article about art & camouflage (featuring this car) on the Tate Museum site. An excellent source of info is the book 'Dazzle painting' by Albert Roskam (ISBN 90 71893 02 2). It's written in Dutch but it has lots of images. I gave my cars this urban camouflage to maximize my chances of survival in the inner city traffic.

Opel Kadett Dazzle Art Car By Patricia Van Lubeck

Opel Kadett Dazzle Art Car By Patricia Van Lubeck

Opel Kadett Dazzle Art Car By Patricia Van Lubeck

Fiat Ritmo Dazzle Art Car By Patricia Van Lubeck

Fiat Ritmo Dazzle Art Car By Patricia Van Lubeck

copy and photos via
Posted on Art Car Central

Fileteado Renault Art Car by Alfredo Genovese

This 1981 Renault Hatchback Art Car was painted by artist Alfredo Genovese in Fileteado art work and submitted by Martin. It was on sale for about $6,000 back in 2007 from Argentina, but I don't know now who owns it.via
Here is also a video by the same artis working on a Fiat 600.

Garden Art Car Goes to Court

This garden art car is headed to The U.S. Supreme Court that will consider an appeal next month from the owner of Planet K stores over his long-running battle with the city of San Marcos about his right to display it. In 2007 Michael Kleinman paid two artists to transform this salvage special in front of his store into a painted cactus planter art car. City officials got themselves hot and bothered, claiming the Oldsmobile 88 was in violation of a city ordinance declaring such displays public nuisances. The car was removed and Kleinman is appealing a 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in February that found the car-planter to be “ultimately a junked vehicle.”  Good luck with that!! via Its funny I was going to do a garden art car post a while back and forgotten about it until my dad sent me this article two days ago. As you can see these are just a few of the garden cars I found from around the world. Most are intentional, some natural and the last one is purely accidental. If you like these you might also like the Grass Art Cars also on Art Car Central.

7 ways to save big with half a car in 2010

2010 might turn out to be another financially difficult year so I came up with seven ways to save on you car bill in 2010. By getting half a car this year you will be saving a ton of money and doing your part in the fight against global warming. You will also enjoy other benefits that you might never have though of before like more ventilation, access to carpool lanes and the ability to plow a corn field. It will difficult at first to drive with only two front wheels but over time this too will become a problem of the past. To start things off here is a great video of a half car expert demonstrating its capabilities, in case you still have doubts.


Here are 7 ways to save big with half a car in 2010

1) Half car saves on drive through costs by cooking in your car


2) Half car saves a ton on see's candies and flowers after the divorce papers go through


3) Half car saves on moving costs with plenty of trunk space


4) Half car saves on the price of a full size car


5) Half car saves on gas with smaller a engine


6) Half car saves on speeding tickets


7) Half car gets more horse power with reduced emissions





Here is more half car videos just in case you cant get enough!!!

Fantastic Italian Art Car - Fiat 500

I found this fantastic Italian Art Car created using an old Fiat 500, I think. I don't know anything more about this car other than the paint job is simply incredible in detail, color and design. It uses all the patterns all the time but somehow it works out. Nice Job.


by Pasc_Lem

The Grass Car

For the longest time I have been fascinated by grass covered cars. Its a whole other world when people cover vehicles in astroturf or even better real grass. The later takes a bit more skill as you will see in the video of a guy who started doing that in the late eighties. I did a search on Google and Flikr and found a few more vehicles covered in this stuff, the effect is simply amazing. Talk about an eco friendly green car.

Brooklyn, New York artist Gene Pool is featured in this short video from the movie Wild Wheels by Harrod Blank

Gene Also did a Grass Bus

And here are some other Grass Cars I found on Flikr

Photo by temp13rec.

Photo by Cyrius

Photo by basheem

Photo by Daniel Mauermann

Photo by anab Jain

Photo by northreflections

Photo by europeanartphoto

Photo by Mulad

Photo bymeherenow

And a few others