When Cars Had Hips...

...And Boobs......And real Hood Ornaments.Seen at the Ford & Friends Car Show and Picnic, July 2009.

Calliope? Tube Worm Colony?

No, these splendid brushed aluminum tubes are the air intakes on a hot rod seen at the recent Ford & Friends Car Show and Picnic in Saanich. The jaunty whimsicality of these intakes is an inspiration and reminds me that fine art is probably as often seen outside of galleries as within, though it may not be recognized as such. Most of the cars shown at Ford & Friends can easily be seen as beautifully rendered sculptures. They are finished with loving attention to detail. Their paint jobs glow and sparkle with colors of dreamlike richness. The superb micro-decor sense that marks their interiors is like haute couture combined with the jewelers' art. And they not only look good. The rumble and thrum of finely tuned engines heard through dual mufflers delights the ear. But the icing on the cake is that these babies move, and they move with the lazy grace and power of giant predators. Even a Rembrandt seems pretty flat by comparison.

Chopper

No Roman emperor ever had a steed so sleek, so powerful or so beautiful.

Fords & Friends Car Show and Picnic

While I am happy that the gasoline powered vehicle is on the way out, I am sad to see the demise of the car as an objet d'art. The age of the automobile surely produced some of America's most stunning artistic designs and time only improves most classic cars. Last weekend I attended the Fords & Friends Car show and Picnic out at the Saanich Historical Artifacts Society grounds and discovered that almost nothing photographs better than a bunch of beautifully restored and customized cars, especially those from the nineteen forties, fifties and sixties. Here's a taste - more to come.