Men’s love for their machines goes right back to the invention of the wheel. Though we don’t know whether early man actually kissed his beloved wheel goodnight before hitting the sack, most of do have a few auto nuts in our circle of friends who hug their cars/bikes and take their time whispering sweet nothings each night before they retire to bed. And there are auto junkies who just refuse to say goodbye to machines that no longer function and reinvent them in the guise of furniture to ensure that they stay in their lives and in close proximity for as long as possible. Most of you would draw the line at that, but auto lovers always find a way to immortalize their beloved cars and bikes and sometimes the reinvention goes wrong and ends up looking something like these weird bits of “art”!
1. James Corbett art from auto Parts
Ok so this may look more like props leftover from the sets of the 1991 horror flick inspired by a Stephen King short story Sometimes They Come Back than auto art but we do admire the artistic spirit of Aussie James Corbett who used bits of old cars to pay tribute to the auto making style of the 1950s and ' 60s. Using bits salvaged from radiators, exhausts, spark plugs, gears, and anything else that can be used from cars otherwise doomed to rot in junkyards, the 46-year-old Australian artist creates sculptures that are worth thousands of bucks.
2. Transformer Made From Auto parts
This ten meter high “Transformer” was spotted standing at the Bird’s Nest Stadium in Beijing’s Olympic Park in 2010. Made from auto scraps, this particular Transformer did not transform back into a cool car, but proved exactly how much the movie franchise influenced artists around the world and inspired them to take utter junk to create more utter junk in the name of art.
3. Crawling alien sculpture
if the recent economic slowdown took away your job and you can no longer afford to feed the dogs that guard your house, or afford to keep your security gear up and running, this eerie Alien Queen sculpture from Ireland-based studio RoboSteel might just be the thing you need to keep vandals and burglars from looting your house while you’re out hunting for a job. Crafted out of old auto parts, the steel sculpture is neatly welded together and finished in high-gloss lacquer to give an eerie and slimy look. The 45 cm-long sculpture weighs around 10 kgs and costs €180.
4. MotorCycle Man
It may look like the offspring of Sonny (the good robot in I, Robot) and the Terminator (in the future male robots will be able to have children together so go with the story!), but the life size MotorCycleMan AKA RoboMan is one heck of a fine auto sculpture! Created for the 2009 Carole Nash International Motorcycle and Scooter Show by RoboSteel, the sculpture is created entirely from recycled motorcycle parts. Nearly 2 meters tall, the life-sized sculpture took over 750 hours to construct and used parts from bikes from world’s most famous bike makers including Suzuki and Yamaha.
5. Paladin
If you like riding the mechanical bulls in Texas-theme restaurants, you’re gonna love this stunning sculpture known as Paladin. Fashioned from carbon steel, trashed stainless steel, and recycled motorcycle and auto parts, the stunning piece is the fifth in the series of sculptures called Texas Longhorn Bull by sculptor and eco-artist Bettye Hamblen Turner.
6. Alastair Gibson Automotive Inspired Sculpture
South African Alastair Gibson loves two things in life more than anything else- game fish and automobiles. And he used his passion for both to create his line of rather bizarre Automotive Inspired Sculpture. Using the gearboxes, radiators, bodywork fixings, exhaust tailpipes, floor stays, and polyurethane foam from driver’s seats among various auto parts, Gibson created the sculptures as a way to find similarities between Grand Prix cars and game fish.
7. Chess Set made of recycled auto parts
The Recycled Auto Part Chess Set was created by artists Armando Ramirez and is one of the most practical bits of auto sculptures that we have seen down the years. Using NGK and AC DELCO spark plugs to fashion the heads of the bishops and using other automobile parts to fashion the rest of the pieces and the chess board, the chess set was intentionally given a rustic look to bring a little intensity to the otherwise somber game.
8. Jack Sparrow Sculpture made from auto parts
Created by Bangkok, Thailand-based Kreatworks Studio, this 1000-lbs Jack Sparrow sculpture was created using scrap metal from condemned machines and old cars and frankly looks more like something we might get to see should the producers of the movie franchise choose to give the story a futuristic twist later on! The handiwork of artist Krittayakorn Chaijit, the metal-man measures nearly 9 feet-tall and pays a larger than life tribute to the character that only Johnny Depp could have brought to life!
9. Mosquito Monument made from auto parts
If you’re not a fan of oversized creepy crawlies, chances are you not gonna like this life-size mosquito sculpture made from auto scraps a whole lot either. Almost as tall as an average person, the scrap metal blood-sucker sculpture was created by Russian artist Valery Chaliy and erected in a park in a small village in the Noyabrsk area of Russia. Apparently inspired by the millions of mosquitoes that have made neighboring swamps their home, the bizarre sculpture is comprised of recycled old car and truck parts.
10. Nebraska's Carhenge
Situated on a farm on the outskirts of Alliance, Nebraska, Nebraska's Carhenge is a 38-car sculpture that is inspired by the pre-historic English monument and the reason for its existence is as mysterious as the origins and usage of the megaliths on English soil. The automotive megalith was built in 1987 by Jim Reinders and attracts over 80,000 visitors a year. Friends of Carhenge, a non-profit group, owns and operates the monument though they have gone in debt and have been looking for automotive fanatics to fund the maintenance of this art installation.
