Garden Art Car Goes to Court

This garden art car is headed to The U.S. Supreme Court that will consider an appeal next month from the owner of Planet K stores over his long-running battle with the city of San Marcos about his right to display it. In 2007 Michael Kleinman paid two artists to transform this salvage special in front of his store into a painted cactus planter art car. City officials got themselves hot and bothered, claiming the Oldsmobile 88 was in violation of a city ordinance declaring such displays public nuisances. The car was removed and Kleinman is appealing a 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in February that found the car-planter to be “ultimately a junked vehicle.”  Good luck with that!! via Its funny I was going to do a garden art car post a while back and forgotten about it until my dad sent me this article two days ago. As you can see these are just a few of the garden cars I found from around the world. Most are intentional, some natural and the last one is purely accidental. If you like these you might also like the Grass Art Cars also on Art Car Central.

Fantastic Italian Art Car - Fiat 500

I found this fantastic Italian Art Car created using an old Fiat 500, I think. I don't know anything more about this car other than the paint job is simply incredible in detail, color and design. It uses all the patterns all the time but somehow it works out. Nice Job.


by Pasc_Lem

1957 Fiat Eden Rock (or Marina) built on a Multipla chassis by PininFarina because the Fiat founding family wanted a go-fer car for their French resort villa

The car was commissioned by the family that founded Fiat, the Agnelli family. They also had the largest holdings on the Italian stock exchange. They owned a remarkable French villa, one famous for once having been owned by kings, and entered the car in the 1957 Paris auto show... and I guess that is where the Cord and Doheny family saw it and bought it, because they had it at their vacation resort, Lake Arrowhead California by 1959. 

The special 600 was called the "Eden Roc" as the promontory overlooking Cap d'Antibes along the coastline of Cote d'Azur where the Villa Leopolda is, in the town of Villefranche-sur-Mer. The little Fiat was used to shuttle guests around the 20-acre villa and town.

 In the late '60s, this car was taken to the Lingotto in Turin and replaced the Fiat 1900 Cabriolet Boano used by Prof. Valletta to lead guests to visit the factory. http://www.alfabb.com/bb/forums/other-italian-cars/160958-funny-fiat.html

The French resort was Villa Leopolda, owned by King Leopold of Belgium, and King Albert after him. It was used in the Hitchcock movie "To Catch A aThief" that starred grace Kelly, later Princess of Monaco. 

Most recently, according to Wikipedia, it's owned by the Russian billionaire, and he bought it for the world record price of 370 Euro http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Leopolda

 The Doheny family connection is interesting, as their former mansion, Graystone, is the site of the Beverly Hills concours I went a couple weeks ago. Doheny was an oil magnate, and married the daughter of the Cord Automobile company founder. Cord company holding included American Airways, Checker Cabs, Cord and Auburn automobile companies

The oldest car collection in the US... the Larz Anderson museum in Brookline Mass

The collection has the following
1899 Winton
1900 Rochet-Schneider
1901 Winton Bullet
1903 Gardner-Serpollet
1905 Electromobile
1906 CGV
1907 FIAT
Powerful and bold, the Andersons’ 1907 Fiat was the supercar of its time.  Even the motto of the automobile, No Hill Can Stop Me, reflected its strength, for many automobiles at this time had difficulty going up hills.  This 11-liter, 6-cylinder Fiat boasted a strength of 65 horsepower; only 86 were manufactured.  Bought by the Andersons while they were on vacation in Europe, the car was then shipped to New York to be re-bodied by the Hol-Tan Company.
1908 Bailey Electric
1910 Panhard et Levasor
1912 Renault
1915 Packard Twin Six
1924 Renault Torpedo
1925 Luxor Taxi
1926 Lincoln
and small sidenote, the museum collection (in a 1888 carriage house) was voted as one of the Top 10 Boston Museums for a wedding

This year, the Pebble Beach Concours has invited the Larz Anderson museum to bring the 1907 Fiat, and it needs a couple of tires. http://larzanderson.org/1907fiat/

You'll understand that car museums in Massachusetts are off the beaten path of tourists, and door donations might be a bit down lately... but the car is IMPRESSIVE! It has been a feature of the collection that has been open to the public for viewing.... get this, since 1927. The Museum was founded in 1949, and might be the oldest car museum in America that is still open.

 It just needs a couple of dollars to get tires.

The 1907 Fiat was last was operated in 1919, and the workshop of  "The Old Motor" David is getting it ready to be shipped to Pebble Beach, read about that at http://theoldmotor.com/?p=50392 .

David is one of the few who are expert at brass era and classics, and is buying one tire, handling all the work of fixing the rims, handling the lubrication (etc etc etc) but is not set to sponsor more than the one tire as they are about $500 apiece.

Follow this link directly to the Larz Anderson website were you can donateby credit card or mail. If you donate by mail enclose a note that it is for the 1907 Fiat. The cost for the transportation out and back has already been taken care of by a donation and The Old Motor has also donated all of its time and facilities to help them out.  Please remember that any amount you can help with will count and add up.

The rear tires were close to impossible to get off the without harming the rims. We could have cut them off, but chose instead to save them as they are part of the history of the car. Both rear tires being 8-ply truck tires, have a side walls that are over 1/2″ thick and being 80-90 years old are dried out and very inflexible. It was a long and very hard job to get them off intact, without bending or harming the rims, but with some patience it was eventually accomplished. Very soon it will be on all four new tires and tubes and we will show you more of this fine cars features in photos.

In the mean time, please contribute to the Larz Anderson Auto Museum if you can, as they count totally on donations to carry on their educational mission. In the future The Old Motor is going to continue to support them and we are working with them to help start a Preservation Fund, which can be used for the other needs of the core Anderson Collection of Automobiles in the future.

I'd love to be there when they fire up the motor for the first time in 93 years.