Art cars in New Harmony

On Wednesday August 12th, people witnessed some visually stimulating and wacky cars in New Harmony Indiana. The art cars, ‘California Fantasy Van’ and ‘Pico de Gallo’, driven by a man named Hunter, parked across the street of the gallery. Hunter is on a road trip headed to St. Louis. The trip originally started in Arizona, where the owner of ‘California Fantasy Van’, Hunter, currently calls home.
Art Cars are an emerging genre of folk art that takes a standard street-legal car and transforms the vehicle into the owner’s individual vision. Or sometimes the car simply displays a mind-blowing collection that grasps the attention of more folks because it is parked curbside and is not in a basement. There’s currently over 900 Art Cars in the U.S. The owners of these vehicles enjoy mobile art festivals as they cruise the road.
Hunter is part of an organization called Art Car World in Douglas, Arizona. This up and coming museum already hosts its share of art cars, with an expected total of 42 cars in the next couple years.
As to the origins of the ‘California Fantasy Van’, it was created by Hunter’s godfather, Ernie Steingold. Steingold did not make his car for self expression necessarily, but merely a way to display his massive collection. Over the course of 22 years, he riveted each piece of brass on the van until they engulfed it entirely. With no artistic training, but one hell of a vision, ‘California Fantasy Fan’ was transformed into a mobile display of over 5000 pieces of brass and $1500 worth of coins. When the van’s cruising along, Hunter said that the birds and dogs absolutely love the 200+bells.
‘Pico de Gallo’ (a.k.a. Music Car) was created by photographer and filmmaker Harrod Blank. The ‘62 VW has been adorned with recycled instruments that music stores disregarded as useless junk, as well as cd’s, and other musical paraphernalia. ‘Pico de Gallo’ has been featured on music tours with Willy Nelson and Jimmy Buffett to name a few. It will also be featured in the film The Lost Gringos, which will be shot in Mexico.