Art Cars

Podcast Episode: 0256
What defines an automobile as a piece of art?

       ​What if cars were more than just a means of transportation, but true works of art? This episode takes you on a journey through the artistic value embedded in automotive design. We unravel the creative process behind some of the most iconic cars and the masterminds like Ettore Bugatti who

​shaped the automotive world with an artful touch. From the sculptural beauty of the Bugatti Type 57 Atlantique to the harmonious lines of the Ferrari 250 Testarossa, we discuss how these vehicles have transcended their mechanical purpose to become symbols of their time.

​      Art. It defines something and it showcases something to you. There are all kinds of different variations of art, and even in the automotive world, art is part of it. Yeah, we all know that everything goes through an artistic background. All cars start out as an artistic rendition of what they think the world would like. Being a designer of the past myself, I know about the artistic abilities and what goes into creating these works of art for the road, of a thought and the major process that goes into creating some of the most beautiful vehicles on the road. But what really constitutes an automobile as a work of art? Well, anytime you go to an art gallery or museum, you don't see a lot of them. There are a few out there in the world that are registered artistic vehicles. Then again, there's also ones out there that you wouldn't even think would fall into an artistic car, and today AutoLooks is going to take a look at the most famous art cars out there.
 
     Welcome back to the AutoLooks Podcast. I'm your host, as always, the doctor to the automotive industry, Mr. Everett Jay, coming to you from our host website at AutoLooks.net. If you haven't been there, stop by, check it out. Read some of the reviews, check out some of the ratings. Go to the Corporate Links website page big or small, we have them all car companies from around the globe and then sign up to learn more information from us. Now, eventually we'll get around to getting you the newsletter. Actually, it gets a little bit more time on our hands, but by signing yourself up you can find out new insider information from the AutoLooks podcast and AutoLooks.net when things will be coming out and when new updates are going to be hitting us All from the AutoLooks.net website. Right there you can find a link to every single one of our social feeds. Or if you wish to leave a comment, send us an email or like us and get your friends to like us. You can all do it there from the AutoLooks.net website. The AutoLooks podcast is brought to you by Ecomm Entertainment Group and distributed by Podbean.com. If you'd like to get in touch with us, send email at AutoLooks.net. 

            So, like I said in the beginning, art cars. What defines an automobile as an artistic vehicle? We can all think of great artists around the world. Hell, one of the greatest artists known of to everyone, has a very famous brother who became a famous automotive artist and has created some of the greatest artworks of the automotive world. Now if you don't know who we're talking about, well, you've kind of missed some of the previous podcasts. Go back and listen to them, because there's some great bits of information in there. But there's one automotive genius who made beautiful, beautiful cars, and one of their vehicles is actually registered as a piece of art. We're talking about the Bugatti Type 57 Atlantique Bugatti, if you did not know this, had a very famous brother, Ettore Bugatti. His brother was Rembrandt. Yes, the famous painter Rembrandt is related to Bugatti. Kind of funny how the artistic and engineering side of their background came out with both boys. Think about it. Rembrandt made some amazing artwork they're all over the world and command top dollar and his brother created some of the greatest works of art in automotive culture. 

        When you think of an artistic vehicle and you picture it in your mind, there's two companies that always come to mind. First, Ferrari, Bugatti and them being the only two car companies out there that actually have vehicles registered as artistic ventures. Yeah, you can't take it. So, the new De Tomaso came out. It's kind of funny that beautifully crafted P900 from De Tomaso trying to bring their life back from ideal ventures, and then all of a sudden, they get hit with a lawsuit because the lines of their vehicle are very similar to that of one of the most well-known and well-protected automotive designs. It is a protected piece of art as well, considering the fact that it's also registered, and in the Guggenheim, we're talking about the 1957 Ferrari 250 Testarossa race car. Yes, the lines of that were very similar to the new De Tomaso P900. Now Scuderia Glickenhaus decided to go after them as well, because those lines took from his original designs as well, which he utilized Ferrari and Pininfarina design aspects from and paid them to utilize those designs. So, he wasn't too happy that this brand new De Tomaso is utilizing their artistic background. 

        One of the most beautiful cars ever created. That's the thing Everybody always thinks. Artistic vehicles are only these amazing supercars and hyper cars. No, not really. What really defines an art car? It's an image which stands the test of time. Want a perfect example of an artistic rendition of an automobile, the Volkswagen Beetle. It could be completely distinguished by just the shadow of its outline. That's it. You have the shadow, seriously, the silhouette, similar to the artistic work I did with my auto art stuff silhouette art, creating a silhouette of an original Volkswagen Beetle. Most people will understand what it is. You may think it's a simple design, but its inherent artistic background signifies that this thing is part of pop culture and what we signify as artwork. With that, the definition of an art car starts to blossom. 

        I don't know if you remember a few years ago when Nissan was trying to create their new image, when they re-released the Z back in the early 2000s, they had their own design aspect where literally the Japanese artwork they tried to use the least number of lines to create a perfect silhouette of their vehicles so that anybody can distinguish their products from anyone else. They used an art form to build a brand-new design language into their vehicles and that's what a lot of automobile companies use. They have their own specific designs, like kinetic designs, hard edge designs, forward thinking designs. They all have weird names for them. Remember Ford with those really big, boring steel plates on the front of those old Ford Fusions and Ford Edges? Yeah, that was a design language they were looking at. They used it to signify their vehicles. Mazda uses it in all of their vehicles. They have a specific design language and you have to remember design work for automobiles is the exact same thing as artwork, because both are drawn out.
 
        Sure, one is going into creating something that's of existence in this world and the other one as an image of something that does exist in this world or something that exists only in your mind. But that also is where concept cars come from, and these beauties, these artistic beauties, take form as a piece of art before they're transferred onto another medium. Like we said, eventually these pieces of art can be registered and trademarked as pieces of art. The original Ferrari Daytona and the 250 Testarossa are both registered pieces of art, just like the 57 Atlantique from Bugatti. You can't play around with their images because they're owned by them, similar to that of their logos are owned by them. It's a piece of artwork that signifies what it is. So, if that's what really defines the art car, what really makes an art car? Is it something that is so amazing, like the most amazing designs out there, something that captures your attention anytime you see it, like the wedge-shaped design of the original Lamborghini Countach.
 
        The snake head used to create the original Dodge Viper, an outside designer, somebody who didn't work for Chrysler. They built their own concepts outside and submitted them back. They were a paid design company and he used the head of the actual viper snake to design that car. He's also the designer behind the copperhead and hence the reason why the rear end of the copperhead looks like the back end of the head of a copperhead snake. They utilize something from the world around us and added it with their artistic ability to design anything into these great automobiles. You have to think about.
 
        The original Dodge Viper design broke the mold. BMW i8, when it came out, started breaking the mold again. Hell, you want to talk about interesting vehicles that you never think have any artistic background in them. How about the Nissan Murano? When it first came out, it did away with all standard grills. It took us from standard boxy designs of SUVs and created a more car-based, crossover, utility-looking vehicle. It was essentially the birth of the CUV. It broke molds and changed the way we saw things. It brought in a new language to the automotive world. 

          We all think the new Ford Mustang Mach-E is not a Mustang, but it's breaking the mold and if you go back and listen to our podcast about why the Ford Mustang Mach-E exists, then you might understand how it's breaking the mold. While utilizing the design emphasis and the name from the original artistic background, which was the Ford Mustang, it created a pure emphasis on its own design, its power and its features. The Mustang isn't just about being a two-door performance vehicle. It's about power, it's about freedom and it's about the ability to have something that'll turn heads that doesn't cost a fortune. Doesn't that design language flow through onto the Mustang Mach-E as well? It does, and they all work together. You have to remember artistic vehicles, these amazing perfections of automobile designs, are not products that are literally just thrown together at the last minute of the day just to showcase to your boss something new for the world around us.
 
        If you go back and check all of the original Nissan Maxima designs, they're all standard, gelatinous vehicles that fit into the standard sedan marketplace. It's a mid-sized sedan and it just blends in. Sure, they added more performance. Sure, they actually got one into the original Fast and the Furious movie, which pushed the Maxima further out. But the last design of the Nissan Maxima was taken from one of the most respected automotive designs they ever created for a concept car on a sedan outline. Its original design from 2014,
 
        The Nissan Sport Sedan Concept showed us where Nissan wanted to go in its future. It wanted to get away from this bland, boring look. You have to remember. They joined together with Renault in the early 2000s and their vehicles became more of these boring, monotonous products, which is essentially what Renault was famous for making. They made standardized-looking products. They didn't create artistic value into their vehicles; they just created something to sell to people because people knew the name. Nissan wanted to break that mold. They wanted to create something that flowed, that gave the emphasis of power, that showed a sport appeal in a sedan platform. They wanted to give us what the Nissan Maxima from the original Fast and Furious movie was a powerful four-door sedan. And they wanted to do that with one of the most amazing automotive designs of all time. And in 2016, Nissan gave it to us when they released the brand-new Nissan Maxima. Utilizing lots of key features from the original sports sedan concept from 2014, the new Nissan Maxima became one of the best designs out there. The AutoLooks A+ awards ranked it in the A-plus category one of the few sedans that has ever been given an A+ award because its design broke the mold on everything.
 
      Every part of that vehicle worked with each other. They didn't add stuff in, they blended it all together, and that's what amazing designs are about. They're not about last-minute modifications. Oh, we forgot to put the exhaust port at the rear. Uh, just stick it on the bumper. Oh, we forgot to put the turn signals on. Uh, just you know, throw it on the edge of the headlight. Oh crap, we got to put them centers in the front. Well, find a spot you could stick it in and stick it in there. 

           No, the artistic value behind these vehicles makes everything flow together. It's perfect, it's a supermodel when you think of it. And that's what I always said. See, the artistic factor of vehicles makes you look at them and understand where the designer was going, what they were trying to prove to the world. Where they're trying to give you a powerful vehicle. Where they're trying to create a fast vehicle. Where they're trying to give you a powerful vehicle. Where they're trying to create a fast vehicle. Where they're trying to create the best airflow for a vehicle. Yeah, even sometimes the most bland, boring vehicles like the Volkswagen X1.
 
        Super simple design can be considered an artistic value vehicle because they did everything, they could to bring down the coefficient of drag, to make it so that vehicle would go as far as possible on a drop of fuel. You might just think that's an engineering, automotive excellence, a piece of automotive engineering excellence, but in all reality, the engineering and all the technology behind it, added with a design that goes with what the end product was supposed to be, makes it a perfect piece of automotive culture and it becomes an artistic vehicle they all supposed to be makes it a perfect piece of automotive culture and it becomes an artistic vehicle. They all have to be made to make sense. Now, artistic value vehicles are also to make a statement, and a lot of artistic vehicles, when you think about them, are mostly halo products, like the Countach, the F40, the Jaguar XJ220, the Bugatti Veyron. They all have some sort of artistic factor to them. The F40 was a racing car for the streets. The Countach took wedge design and brought it to the world. Well, you want to get something simple. Like I said, the Volkswagen Beetle, a vehicle to put Germany on wheels, became one of the most notable designs of all time.
 
       But there's also artistic factors that showcase specific points in history as well, or specific parts of that vehicle can be its own history. Jeep utilizes the original grille 8-slot grille as their own personal logo now, because Jeep, literally up until the 90s, was just Jeep. There was no logo, but now they use their grille, which is standard on all of its products as its own logo. But now they use their grill, which is standard on all of its products, as its own logo, but as a feature that created an artistic mental image. If you put that, eight grills with two circles at either end of it, people look at it and automatically know, oh Jeep. The logo and its original design gave it its artistic presence, the art car.
 
       But the Jeep wasn't a halo product. The original Willy's Jeep or Bantam Jeep was made for a specific purpose. The Tommaso P72 is a brand-new halo vehicle meant to bring the De Tomaso back to the limelight. The YangWang U9 supercar that can drive on three wheels and has one of the lowest coefficients to drag around gives us a beauty of a Halo product to bring you in. So, you purchase their other products. Halo products can also be used to help save a company. 

          The Viper needed to make a statement for Chrysler to say Chrysler Corporation was back and Dodge can make performance product. When they released the Viper, it was meant to make a statement. Sure, we have Daytona’s, we have the Shadow Sport Hell. We even created the Dodge Spirit and the Dodge Caravan Turbo Hell. We've had Shelby versions of even the Omni and the Dakota, but Dodge is here to show that it's more powerful than the competition, and they did that with one of the best automotive designs in history, the original Dodge Viper, a design that broke the mold. It added features never even thought of on vehicles, kind of like the Caravan when it added dual sliding doors and cup holders to vehicles around the world.
 
          These are engineering feats, but they also create something that is implanted in our brain for its artistic ability. If you can draw it and automatically know what it is, it's a piece of art. It's known of everyone. These things can be created to fight off competition, save a company, make a statement, boost profits and showcase specific moments in time. When you see a 65 Corvette, you think of the 60s. A GTO 60s, mustang 60s how about this? A Renault Alliance, you think of the 80s and you think of the last crappy vehicle AMC ever made. They have timepieces. If you put a white Ferrari Testarossa next to a Lamborghini Countach, you're automatically going to be drawn to Miami Vice in the 1980s. These designs showcase a point in time as well. They bring back a memory from specific times if you were there or you had even seen it. 69 Charger, if it's black, you think fast and furious. If it's orange, you think duke's a hazard. If it's green, that's uh crazy. Larry saving Mary I can't remember the name of the movie, but it was with Peter Fonda. It was pretty good. So, all these things bring back things to you.
 
      Technological achievements is another great artistic factor. The XJ220 tried to showcase to us that you can go over 200 miles per hour in a supercar and because of that and because of its gelatinous blob image, the XJ220 has become one of the most notable Jaguars of all time, not unlike the most beautiful car in history, the Jaguar E-Type. Yes, the original E-Type. Next to the Testarossa, the E-Type from Jaguar is one of the most known of and respected designs of all time. It's one of the biggest artistic value vehicles out there. It's sleek lines, wire rims, hell, even the headlights being bubbles blend in. Everything goes perfectly with everything else, is it? The only thing on that vehicle that stands out is its chrome exhaust, because it's not blended into the design perfectly, but we all know it's time. That was the best they were able to do. So, these cars created an artistic value to us. 

​       So how can we actually save these designs? Keep companies from stealing them? We all know that a lot of small car companies in China are known for stealing designs of famous vehicles. The Land Rover Evoque. If you think about it, it's not the most artistic, valued vehicle in the world, but when it came out it made a major statement and everyone wanted it. Didn't matter if you like Jaguar or not, everybody thought it was cool. It implanted itself into our minds and because of that it's been copied multiple times in the Chinese marketplace.
 
        People want that image. Well, that image is a piece of art created by its original designers. Now those artworks can follow you from company to company. The Audi TT was designed by the same designer who made the Chrysler Crossfire. He had worked at Audi and when he left, he utilized its original design aspects of the Audi TT and blended them with the Mercedes SLK platform to create the Chrysler Crossfire. You ever wonder why their image is very similar, not exactly the same, but similar their artistic values, the design emphasis on its silhouette.
 
      To protect these designs, we could start registering some of the most famous vehicles of all time 64 Mustang, you know, 1938 Volkswagen Beetle, 57 Testarossa, hell, even an 86 Ferrari Testarossa from Miami Vice with its shark fins on the side. Those are only available on that specific vehicle. You never saw them on anything else. It had its own image. So, if somebody else copied that, you'd be utilizing the artistic value of another vehicle that already exists. So, even though the Guggenheim has registered both the 57 Atlantic and the 250 Testarossa as pieces of artwork, which means nobody could steal their designs anymore, maybe more of those things need to happen. Maybe people need to start realizing that automobiles are not just a mode of transportation to convey us from point A to point B. No, these products have artistic value behind them. 

         ​If you've seen the original movie Bean the movie, you understand the famous American painting of Whistler's mother. It's just a picture of his mother. That's it sitting in a chair. And if you listen to Mr. Bean talk about that, well, why did he want to draw her? She looks like an old lady with a stick up her butt, but he loved his mother. Think about it. There's artistic value. He literally just did a painting of his mother sitting in a chair, but people want to spend tons of money to get it.
 
         Well, with the aftermarket industry blowing up for supercars now and a lot of these very rare vehicles commanding high dollar values, should we not be thinking that it's just because of the rarity that's causing this, but maybe it's the design, the artistic value of those vehicles. If there's only one official Whistler's mother picture out there, sure its rarity can command high value. But when you look at other forms of art, like the Campbell soup, it's literally the simplest thing you could think of. It's a can of soup, but we spend tons of money and we all want to go and see that piece of art. Well, maybe if people got over the fact that automobiles are a mode of conveyance and started seeing them as pieces of art, all the time and effort that goes into designing them, placing things properly, and start understanding some of these artistic vehicles out there and showcasing their significance. The original Buick Y-Job concept hidden headlights or pop-up headlights people call the Mustang gave birth to the pony car. The GTO gave birth to the muscle car.
 
       MG helped pioneer British roadsters in North America. They have specific importance to them. It doesn't matter if they're the most beautiful vehicle in the world. There has to be some specific importance behind it, their artistic value, an art culture. If you can have art culture following people around who make garbage art and you think it's beautiful, then how come there are not people following around some of these most famous designers. I'll give you a name of one Mr. Heinrich Fisker. Yes, the guy who created both Fisker automotives. That failed, but he created some of the best designs Pininfarnia, some amazing designs. Bizzarini they've created their own design house, but they've created these masterpieces of art. Pininfarina is one of the most amazing masterpiece automotive makers out there and even though they're owned by Mahindra now, still doesn't stop them from creating some of the best-looking vehicles on the planet.
 
        You have to remember we need artistic value in these automobiles. Without the artistic value behind them, all vehicles would look exactly the same. And seriously, do you want to drive around in a world where everybody drives around in bland, boring, boxy Lada’s everywhere? And why did I bring that up, even though the Latta was originally built off a Fiat 124 platform? Why? Because if we don't add an artistic complex to it, that's all we're going to get. When you go to a parking lot today and you see that your CR-V, your CX-5, and even the RAV4 and Hyundai Tucson all look the exact same and you have trouble telling them all apart, that's because those vehicles were made to fit the single purpose of what buyers want when they purchase a vehicle, but something like the Corvette, the Dodge, viper, hell. Even the original Volkswagen Beetle and Willy's Jeep were made more. They had a specific purpose in mind, but they also wanted to give it a lasting impression on society. 

        Some of these vehicles the original designers never thought they would blow up and become such a major pop icon in the world like the microbus, the type two microbus. But now when we look at it, we see the artistic design of its Art vehicles. We have to sit back and think about it. We have to start protecting them because a lot of these vehicles provide us a look back at history of the automotive world. You have to think about it. Oh, we could talk about history of humankind and all the things’ civilizations and all that have done. But the automotive history can change the way we perceive the world.
 
        Design changes as our tastes change and when design stops changing it's because our tastes haven't evolved to that next step. Over the past 20 years of rating vehicles, I've noticed that our design tastes haven't really changed in the world. You could tell a vehicle from the 20s to the 30s. You know the 40s and 50s were getting a little bit more difficult because the beginning of the 40s were similar to the 30s and the end of the 40s were more like the 50s, but that's only because World War II kind of screwed things up in the middle. But like vehicles from the 50s, vehicles from the 60s, vehicles from the 70s, vehicles from the 80s, vehicles from the 90s and up until the early 2000s, we had design features for each different decade. Our tastes change and what we liked change. Designs change. Look at buildings. Buildings changed.
 
       We had an artistic factor behind our automotive designs and, even though some of them you might not think were very artistic or very amazing, design like an AE86, a Corolla GTS Coupe its point in history and the cult following that it has behind it has given rise to that bland, boring design as a part of our history, a part of pop culture and a part of the art world Art cars. There's a lot of them out there and, like I said, we need to start protecting them to showcase the beauty that went into designing some of these vehicles. There are small car companies out there that have made some of the most amazing vehicles in the world, but we take them for granted. We look at it and just say it's a failed car company. Hell, Heinrik Fisker saw something amazing with the original Karma. The Karma Automotive and its investors bought the design to keep it around Hell.
 
       The brand new Fisker, the Ronin, that was supposed to come out was something that was slowly going to change the world. He knew design and he knew how to create pieces of art, and even though those companies fail, we need to protect them to showcase them to future generations. Seriously, every art museum out there should have a Tucker torpedo to showcase the amazing ingenuity that went behind developing a car that was supposed to take down the big three, to showcase technological marvels that they thought of before they ever even came out An engine in the rear, a swiveling headlight, safety features that nobody ever even thought about, pop-out windshields to save lives Things we take for granted these days that were put into these automobiles. Now you look at them and you understand behind them that it's not just a hunk of metal made to convey you from point A to point B. It's a beautiful piece of art and you can have art galleries everywhere, but there really should be automotive art galleries as well. When people start to see the artistic factor behind some of the greatest works of art in the automotive world, maybe they'll understand how the automotive world really influences a lot of our own culture. 

​         So, if you like this podcast, please like, share or comment about it on any of the major social feeds or streaming sites that you've found the AutoLooks.net website or AutoLooks podcast on. Like us, comment, share us, tell us what you think. Send us an email over at AutoLooks.net and tell us what artistic value do you see in vehicles that you love, like a Mercedes 300 SL. Is it just because it's a beautiful car? Is it because of one of the first vehicles ring gullwing doors out to the masses? Is it because it was a race car for the street? Tell us what you think the artistic factor is behind those vehicles and tell us why there should actually be more automotive art galleries in the world, because we need to start emphasizing why the automobiles play such a vital role in our society. They're not just hunks of metal; they're pieces of art and technological importance to humankind.
 
        So, give us a like, send us a comment and share this podcast with your friends, your families, your well-wishers, your boss, your co-worker’s hell, your employees, I don't really care. Send it out to your friends, your family. Ask them what vehicles they believe or have an artistic value that we should start protecting is it. Sent us an email. Help, just like us and post underneath this podcast wherever you found it, on any major streaming site or the AutoLooks.net website. And after that, stop by the website, read some of the views, check out some of the ratings. Go to the corporate links website page. Big or small, we all Car companies from around the globe all available from the AutoLooks.net website. The AutoLooks podcast is brought to you by Ecomm Entertainment Group and distributed by Podbean.com. If you'd like to get in touch with us, send us an email over at email at AutoLooks.net. So, for myself, Everett Jay, the Ecomm Entertainment Group, Podbean.com and the AutoLooks.net website strap yourself in for this one fun, amazing ride that the artistic value of the automotive world is going to bring to you. 

Everett J.
​#autolooks