Volvo S60 graffiti art car – Click above to watch the
The concept of the art car may be one that’s been historically championed by in particular, but it isn’t the Bavarian automaker’s alone. Recent years have seen , , , , , and join in on the action, and now has followed suit with a display at the Zurich train station in Switzerland.
Displaying a white sedan in front of a blank white backdrop, Volvo Cars Switzerland invited ten street artists to share their inspiration on the rolling canvas. Over 35,000 commuters passing through the busy bahnhof over the course of the five days, and a camera was set up – with the precision of, well… a Swiss train station – to capture a time-lapse clip of the artists making and re-making the S60 in their own visions. to watch the process unfold.
Gallery:
[Source: ]
: Volvo goes street in a Swiss train station with S60 graffiti art car
2011 59th Annual Twelve Hours of Sebring – Click above for high-res image gallery
invited us to warm and sunny Florida for the 59th annual Twelve Hours of Sebring, the opening round of the 2011 American Le Mans Series that was held this past weekend. While the French racing team in the LMP1 class (beating the factory Peugeot 908 HDi team in their older first-generation Peugeot 908 HDi-FAP), Audi held on through punctured tires and collisions to deliver both the fourth and fifth spot in matching R15++ diesel-powered prototypes (Audi will run its brand-new at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June). In the GT class, BMW proudly nailed first and second place with its hot M3 GT.
Spending time behind-the-scenes with a race team offers a completely different perspective, especially when it comes to an endurance event. While huge crowds of spectators down cold beer and blister from sunburn at Sebring’s huge infield and midway (with some seriously creative camping accommodations), dozens of Audi Sport Team Joest crew sweat out the long hours working on the minute details – everything from track concrete composition to atmospheric barometric pressure is taken into account. During our glimpse into a whirlwind 48-hour period (encompassing qualifying and the race), the pace was maddening whether the drivers were attending signing events or the crew was rehearsing pit stops.
Check out our extensive with coverage of the 56-car field. Note the amount of race telemetry delivered in real-time to the team engineers in the hot pits, and the exhaustion of the crew in the 85-degree ambient temperatures (who capture shut-eye only while the car is running well). A special shout-out to , who we bumped into hanging with the folks in – see you guys next year!
Audi’s Sebring drivers (Dindo Capello, Tom Kristensen, Allan McNish, Timo Bernhard, Romain Dumas and Mike Rockenfeller) signed a flag for us before the race. While it looks great on our wall, we’re going to give it to one of you (). Leave a comment on this post to enter (only one comment or else you’re disqualified), and we’ll choose one lucky recipient for the win.
How to Enter:
Leave a single comment on this post (if you leave two or more, all of your comments will be disqualified)
You must be 18 years or older and a resident of the US or Canada (excluding Quebec)
Limit 1 entry per person during entry period
This entry period begins 7:30 PM EST on Friday, March 25 and ends at 7:30 PM EST on Saturday, March 26. We’ll randomly select 1 winner at that time to receive an Audi flag signed by the team’s 2011 Sebring drivers.
Xander Walker turns Ayrton Senna’s McLaren into Street Art – Click above for high-res image gallery
In the film ““, we get an inside look at the world of street art as told to us by and Thierry Guetta (aka Mr. Brainwash or MBW). This film has received rave reviews and is nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. It also serves as the inspiration for Xander Walker’s Straßenversion (street version) art work.
Mr. Walker combines graffiti art with his love for motorsports. The result is affordable street art depicting vehicles that hold a special place in the heart of many racing enthusiasts. We’ll let Xander explain how he does it:
Creating the stencils themselves can take a few hours. after that I spray paint the different layers onto 50lb acid free paper (14 x 17″). I paint them in my garage allowing about 15 minutes for the paint to dry before painting the next layer.
I started making these in late November. I have long been a fan of street art, and the idea came to me after a long McLaren MP4/4 photo and info Internet binge which coincided with my seeing the film “Exit Through the Gift Shop”. I initially thought they would look great painted around parking lots of race tracks around the world. I made a stencil and tried out a test print on paper. I thought it looked good, and I put it up for sale at a low price just to see what would happen. Someone bought one almost immediately.
Street art and is inherently anti establishment. Auto racing to me is also inherently anti establishment. People get killed, and it can be a generally wayward, thrill seeking lifestyle. I find the stencil medium to be well suited to capturing the ‘outlaw’ spirit of Ayrton Senna and motorsport in general.
The pieces range from $25 up to $50, and each is a hand-signed, limited-edition example. You can check out the rest of , and view high-res images in the gallery below. We’ll be sure to save some of these for Autoblog’s 2012 Holiday Gift Guide…
Detroit may be one step closer to wiping the old off the face of the map for good. For years, the structure has stood derelict as a symbol of the city’s decay as lawmakers fought to figure out who exactly owns the property. Supposedly, the plant is currently owned by a company under the name of Biosource, Inc, and the only person on that company’s books is Dominic Cristini. Cristini is currently serving a prison term in on drug charges, leaving the local government to try to decide how best to go about cleaning up the site.
But things got a little clearer recently when . The name on the lawsuit wasn’t Cristini’s. Instead, one Romel Casab was behind the move. It had been assumed that Casab was tied to the Packard property in some, but officials had difficulty proving it. Evidently, the parties behind Biosource became upset when the 555 gallery by famous from the property (you can see the art and its relocation ).
Now that there’s a clearer target in Mr. Casab, it’s possible that will be able to lean on him to either demolish or allow the city to take over the former Packard plant altogether. Casab, for his part, denies having any ownership of the property. That’s somewhat predictable considering that if the city moves forward with its attempts to clear the property, Casab could be held accountable for the related costs.
