Volkswagen’s top 5 art cars from around the world

To celebrate Leonardo da Vinci’s birthday this month, Volkswagen produced a list of the most colorful and creative VWs customized by artists from around the globe.

Let us know your favorite by voting in our poll at the bottom of the page.

The ‘Million DollarScirocco

Photos from Volkswagen

This wild, rainbow-colored 1980 Scirocco S was a 10-year project undertaken by Jason Whipple, co-founder of Rotiform Wheels, and British graphic artist Nicolai Sclater.

What started as an all-white blank canvas turned into a progressive and colorful optical illusion with a hand-painted rainbow motif and insightful phrases like “things won’t change until we do” spelled out in blurry lettering.

According to Whipple, everything under the hood is 100 percent custom, including the swapped out transmission, hand-built engine and new engine management system.

So why is it called the ‘Million Dollar’ Scirocco? Because Whipple felt, at the time, he was spending a million dollars on the rebuild.

The Vochol

Vochol BeetleVochol Beetle
The Vochol Beetle at the Museo de Arte Popular in Mexico City | Photos by Asociación de Amigos del Museo de Arte Popular

Covered in over 2.2 million glass beads depicting geometric patterns and scenes of animals and crops, the “Vochol” represents the ongoing traditions of Mexico’s indigenous communities.

“The name ‘Vochol’ is a combination of ‘vocho,’ a common term for Volkswagen Beetles in Mexico, and ‘Huichol,’ another name for the Wixárika indigenous group in the western states of Nayarit and Jalisco, Mexico,” said Volkswagen in its story about this beaded masterpiece.

Commissioned in 2010, a team of eight artists from two Huichol families meticulously decorated the chassis and interior of the ‘90s Beatle by hand, taking over 9,000 hours to complete.

Woodstock’s ‘Light’ Bus

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One of the most famous VW vans of all time is Bob Grimm’s psychedelic “magic bus” that became an icon at the 1969 Woodstock Music and Art Fair.

Volkswagen

Painted by artist Robert “Dr. Bob” Hieronimus in 1968, the bus is adorned with colorful cosmic symbols, archetypal motifs and words in ancient languages that symbolized the Summer of Love.

For Woodstock’s 50th anniversary in 2017, Hieronimus planned to film a documentary restoring the old psychedelic van, but he and Grimm couldn’t remember where they left it 50 years ago. After an extensive search involving researchers, private detectives and even a psychic, the bus was never found.

Giving up their search in 2018, they decided to create an exact replica now know as the “Light” bus.

To learn more, check out Hieronimus’ documentary titled The Woodstock Bus.

The Wedding Beetle

Volkswagen

Making your Cinderella dreams come true, this whimsical, iron-bodied Beetle was created by Mexico City welder and blacksmith Rafael Esparza-Prieto.

In 1968, Esparza-Prieto built this Beetle’s skeleton using white wrought iron and filled in the gaps with floral patterns and decorative swirls.

Blown away by his talent, Volkswagen commission Esparza-Prieto to create two more Wedding Beetles to put on display at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City.

Esparza-Prieto immigrated to California, where he built another pair of Wedding Beetles. Other welders have created the magical Beetle in his honor, so in total there are about 23 Wedding Beetles in the world today found on display in museums or well-kept in private collections.

The Mountainous Masterpiece

Volkswagen

As the official sponsorship vehicle for the Professional Ski Instructors of America and the American Association of Snowboard Instructors in 2017, Volkswagen gifted the PSIA-AASI’s operational leadership team a new Atlas, Tiguan and Gold Alltrack for its support vehicle fleet.

To make these SUVs stand out amongst the snow, Volkswagen commissioned Pacific Northwest artist Mimi Kvinge to give them a colorful makeover.

Kvinge painted a beautiful mountainous landscape with bright blue-sky background on each vehicle.

Being A Kid Was Just A Little More Fun Before Parents Really Cared If You Lived

Illustration for article titled Being A Kid Was Just A Little More Fun Before Parents Really Cared If You Lived

Illustration: Popular Mechanics

As an old-ass mough-fough, I grew up in the era just prior to when parents actually started to really care if their kids lived or died. It was a different time! No one wore seat belts or helmets, and if you were stuck in a car seat, it was to keep you contained and out of the way instead of actually safe. It sounds awful now, but I promise, it wasn’t all bad. Like this, for example: back in the day, you could be a kid on a road trip in a Beetle and have your own cool-ass little play zone.

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These are old plans from the February 1963 issue of Popular Mechanics, and it’s really a pretty clever solution to a problem that’s just not allowed to exist now: how to give your kids space to play in a small car on a long trip?

The problem can’t exist now because, even though everyone has massive SUVs with a good amount of hypothetical play-volume, nobody will do this, anymore. It’s illegal, even.

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Kids now have all kinds of awesome tablets and hand-held game systems that would have seemed like absolute fucking black magic to these 1960s kids, so I guess it’s pretty much a wash.

Here, check out the plans, though:

Illustration for article titled Being A Kid Was Just A Little More Fun Before Parents Really Cared If You Lived

Image: Popular Mechanics

So, you remove the rear seat and build a new, smaller rear seat in the luggage well area, right against the firewall there. Actually, about a decade and a half, after this was published, I myself used to ride in the luggage well of my dad’s old ‘68 Autostick Beetle, with five other people in the car. It was nice and warm back there in the winter.

The rest of the plans involve making an upper padded floor over the back to form a nice, flat playing floor, and, while it’s not mentioned here, I bet you could work in trapdoors to access some storage space in the former rear footwells.

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There’s a surprising amount of room in the back half of a Beetle with the rear seat removed; I helped Raph build a similar setup to this for his Beetle a few years back, and it was quite a good amount of space back there.

I know it was dangerous, but, really, what kid wouldn’t rather tumble around back there doing whatever instead of being lap-belted into a seat for a long drive? I mean, pretty much everything was a deathtrap back then, anyway, so may as well live it up when you’re not wrecking, right?

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Cars today are absolute marvels of safety and that’s unquestionably a wonderful thing. But I think it’s okay to engage in a bit of carefully-curated nostalgia for the reckless motoring of the past, at least sometimes.

Illustration for article titled Being A Kid Was Just A Little More Fun Before Parents Really Cared If You Lived

Illustration: PopMech

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I just looked at that top picture again and noticed two fascinating details: the author’s name, Huc H. Hauser, is amazing, and holy shit, dad looks fucking pissed. I bet he spanks the shit out of those kids for the slightest provocation. Be careful, kids.