Bio Diesel Frankenstein Art Car - Lives on French Fry Oil

Womble Truck - Bio Diesel Frankenstein Art Car - Lives on French Fry Oil

The Womble Truck is a bio diesel Frankenstein art car that lives on french fry oil and may very well be one of Britain's most environmentally friendly cars. It was pieced together in a lab from 21 different cars but is capable of reaching speeds up to 80mph...eventually.

The vehicle was cobbled together from an array of car parts including some from a Sixties Morris 1000, Seventies Mini, a Ford, a Reliant Robin, an MG Midget, a Vauxhall Viva and a Volvo 740. This Frankenstein art car is definitely the poster child for budget mod projects.

It was created by sculptor and environmentalist Buzz Knapp-Fisher, who spent the last six years modifying the automobile into an almost carbon-free mode of transport. He spent about $400 on the car and made some modest and cheap adjustments over the years. Artistically speaking it works because even thought he used all kinds of car parts he managed to stay on one side of the color spectrum.

The Womble Truck started out as a gas car but he eventually was converted to run on bio diesel and now runs entirely on french fry oil. It can run on regular diesel and only does so if its too cold to start with bio diesel first. As you can imagine his gas bill is way low. Nice work Buzz and good luck on your next project with the electric car.
via

Womble Truck - Bio Diesel Frankenstein Art Car - Lives on French Fry Oil

Womble Truck - Bio Diesel Frankenstein Art Car - Lives on French Fry Oil

2,500 Toy Atlas Rainbow Art Car Installation

2,500 Toy Atlas Rainbow Art Car Installation

Here is a fantastic rainbow art car installation for the kid at heart made with 2,500 old toy cars by UK artist David T. Waller. The piece won him the People’s Award at the Arts Depot Open last year and a place of honor here on Art Car Central. I personal love art cars with repetitive glued object which reminds of a car out of the UK called General Cabuncle Art Car, that was covered in toy cars car made to look like the General Lee from my favorite show the Dukes of Hazzard.

2,500 Toy Atlas Rainbow Art Car Installation

2,500 Toy Atlas Rainbow Art Car Installation

Photos by David T Waller,  All rights reserved. Article via

Avis Getting into the Art Car Business - By Artist Dea Vectorink

Avis Art Car by Artist Dea Vectorink - Art Car Central

Avis Car Rental in United Kingdom for the first time has unveiled its exclusive art car available now for rent and one Alfa Romeo car you really don't want to trash.

Their art cars were created as part of a European-wide Facebook competition run by Avis to encourage members of the public to design their own art car.

There were more than 1,000 entries from across six European countries including the UK and the winner was Andrea-Victoria Halbroth aka Dea Vectorink (pictured above), an illustrator and tattoo apprentice who was born in London and currently living in Germany.

Her art car design will join two other art cars designed by Si Scott and French born animation expert McBess, creating the first ever public art cars to be available across Europe.

Avis is the first car rental company to join the art car movement, embodying the postmodernist philosophy that anyone can be an artist.

Recognized to have started in the 1960s and 1970s, the Art Car movement has recently seen a huge revival with high profile car manufacturers and artists getting involved like Art Car Central did back in 2007.

via breaking travel news
 

Avis Art Car by Artist Dea Vectorink - Art Car Central

Avis Art Car by Artist Dea Vectorink - Art Car Central

Avis Art Car by Artist Dea Vectorink - Art Car Central

Avis Art Car by Artist Dea Vectorink - Art Car Central

photos via DeadLens

Sitting on the Fence - Locked Gate Artist Riding on the Locked Gate Bike of Indecision

Here is a guy Artist Stephen Williams who took the term "sitting on a fence" literally with his whimsical creation, a bike made from two antique locked gates called "The Locked Gate". Williams admits that even though his masterpieces may be considered brilliant are far from practical but make the most of the funny side of his weird and wonderful imagination. In my opinion life was made just a tad more brilliant and sunny today through this wonderful and highly impractical fence art bike.Via Inhabitat

Locked Gate Art Bike - by Artist Stephen Williams

Locked Gate Art Bike - by Artist Stephen Williams

Locked Gate Art Bike - by Artist Stephen Williams

VW Art Car Tent For Sale - Get your Camping on!!!

Get ready for this years camping trip with a super 65 VW Camper Tent Art Car on sale at Firebox.com. Its an Officially licensed, four-person tent, full-size replica of the iconic 1965 VW Camper Van that will be sure to turn heads when you set it up. It comes in Red, Yellow and Blue but who says you have to settle, so go ahead and turn into an Art Car Tent.

General Lee Rally Art Car

Every so often, someone enters a General Lee into one of our events, this was Cima Racing's entry into Home2Rome 2010. We generally see more General Lees in Europe than the US probably because of the politically correct thing that surrounds the Confederate Battle Flag in the US these days. The chances of an Italian throwing a brick through the window of a General Lee in Europe is marginally less than in New York for instance.

This car was originally sourced from a tv props department for a very famous TV programme about cars. I haven't seen the episode so I'm going on witness statements but the car was bought within budget (£150/$275) on the condition that it was made into a General Lee.

What is surprising is that this car was not at all perfect. You'd think that a 15 year old Lexus would be in fairly good condition, but not this car. It had a bad time getting through its MOT (yearly UK safety check), and despite the aerial on the roof, the CB didn't work in the slightest. Car to car communication involved shouting loudly whilst the windows were down (thats if they would go down). It also had other issues so I'm told.

The theme is obviously quite simple but it's important to be accurate.

And I don't mean the 01 or the Battle Flag on the roof, I mean, it needs a Daisy Duke. You see, any old person can paint their Lexus orange, and put a number on the side and put an accurate Confederate Flag on the roof.

But what sets this car out is the Daisy Duke it was sporting.

This ArtCar is for all the Daisy Dukes out there!

By Justin Clements Street Safari
Original posted on Art Car Central 

Ancient Art Car Tax from London by Roy Anderson

Roy Alderson Old London Taxi Art Car - Photo by Getty Images

Here is an oldy for you, a vintage taxi from London painted in 15th September 1953 by Artist Roy Alderson. I bet this vintage art car turned heads back in the day.

Thunderbird 2 Rally Art Car Takes to the Streets For Kids with Cancer Fund

Today's StreetSafari special is team Lucky Day and their venerable Thunderbird 2 theme.

We always liked this theme because of its simplicity, simple designs are often the best.

To make your own Thunderbird 2, simply buy a car with the vague shape of Thunderbird 2, or a Mercedes if you can't think of anything. Slam three bits of wood together to make a great big tail wing (remember, this will aid you fuel consumption), then paint the whole thing green, find a free font off the internet and get a friend to cut up some white vinyl letters.

Final job, and most important, is attaching 2 red buckets to the rear bumper. Job done.

You can of course go the extra mile and buy some eBay sourced Thunderbird costumes. Remember that the different members of Thunderbirds had different colored sashes, so don't buy a blue sash and call yourself Virgil - cause you'll look an idiot. Everyone knows blue was Scott Tracey and Virgil was had a yellow sash.

Thunderbird 2 completed 3 events in the end before being retired at the end of 2010.

By Justin Clements Street Safari

Lightning McQueen Volvo Rally Art Car

If you were 3 years old, what car do you want your parents to own? It's not an easy question to ask a 3 year old as there answers are limited. However, Lightning McQueen surely has to be one of the top. And, if you need a sporty looking vehicle to base your Lightning McQueen on - what would you choose? A Volvo 740 of course.

In this case, three grown adults made the car of their dreams, apparently. A Volvo 740 plucked from obscurity that had spent its life driving round the UK's home counties, was now made into an art car. And driven across Europe repeatedly on our events.

I've never actually worked out what the motivation to make this car was, apart from further capitalising on a Cars dvd they had obviously bought.

You may be wondering whether there are any similarities between this car and a real sports car. There aren't.

However, the side effect of being the proud owner of Lightning McQueen meant that the owner was constantly bugged by their kids to take them to school in Lightning, which included half the kids from the neighbourhood. As the owner lamented one day, we can do the school run in a brand new Mercedes, or Lightning. Lightning won every time.

So there we have it. How to impress your children. Make Lightning McQueen.

By Justin Clements Street Safari

Spaced out Moonraker Volvo Rally Art Car

From the deranged minds that brought you the Tank Volvo and Helicopter, we have a space shuttle theme.

Not sure what the background to the idea from these particular overachievers is, maybe Moonraker, but they decided to do a space shuttle theme, with a trailer tent (its like a tent, but on a trailer) with a world on it.

Obviously, making a space shuttle out of a Volvo just doesn't work (you need a BMW 1600 for that, which we shall show you in future weeks), so they made their own space shuttle, mounted two side boosters (SRBs) to the Volvo, and effectively made the Volvo into the external fuel tank.

Then, bolt a great big round piece of metal onto the trailer, paint the Earth on it, and hey presto, you have your very own horizontal Space Shuttle Program, with a diagram of the Earth on the trailer behind incase you forget what your home planet looks like.

The team (the overachievers) even put in some pyrotechnics so that the shuttle actually looks like it has an exhaust trail! We like. Partly because it's always fun to see a bit of thought behind these things, and partly because the chance of the whole thing catching fire is greatly increased.

The trailer tent deserves it's own 15 seconds of fame. It was possibly the mankiest tent you have ever seen in your life. They think the previous owners bought all the camping gear, went camping once, didn't like it, packed the tent wet (remember it's canvas), and let the whole thing fester and rot for several years.

When the team opened the tent for the first time in many years, there were literally bits missing from the canvas, large sections in fact.

But quick to their aid came some drinking aids. They installed a set of optics in the trailer for each evening, and as long as you got far too drunk, you didn't notice the howling gail in the car each night. Or at least, I think that's how that was meant to work.

By Justin Clements Street Safari

Space Invaders Take Over Art Car

I love this space invaders art car from the UK. I takes me back to a time when life was simple and the video games were the same. The goal was easy enough to accomplish in one sitting and the controls were easy to manage: Left, Right, and Fire.

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!

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
 

Cover Art for The Delinquent

the delinquent
December 2010 (issue 13)
Cover art by
Brian Forrest

Editors:
Jason King &
Jeremy Quinn

The delinquent runs nicely on unleaded at 3i pa which means it issues in April, August and December.
www.thedelinquent.co.uk
the delinquent
at 92 Elm Road, Kingston, Surrey, KT2 6HU
United Kingdom

Front cover painting, Southbound at Dusk, is currently on display/sale at Nena, in Seattle
Back cover painting, Koi, is currently is currently on display/sale at Vino at The Landing, in Renton, WA

Chicken Coupe 1971 Morris Traveler Art Car

Chicken Coup Art Car - After

Michael Thompson is the creator of this Chicken Coupe Art Car made from a beat up old 1971 Morris Traveler in the heart of Norfolk Broads.

He went looking for something a little more unusual to make into a hen house and asked a friend of his who owned a body-repair shop to keep his eyes peeled for an interesting vehicle that he could use.
Weeks went by when one day this beat up old Morris showed up on its way to the scrap yard and Michael took about thirty seconds to decide that this was what he was looking for in chicken coupe art car. 100 quid (bucks) later and a pint of beer it was delivered to Michael's House.

The front end was a total loss so he chopped it up and used the back end that went on to become this really cool chicken coupe art car for Michael's four hens complete with ramp and bumper sticker.

His final words on the matter were... "Re-use, Recycle... one planet - to the max!" via

Chicken Coupe Art Car - Before

Porsche 356 Art Car painted with M.C Escher Reptiles

This Porsche 356 was painted by Author and Graphic Designer Jasper Fforde with M.C Escher's famous reptiles. This art car was based on a car driven by a character in one of his books.