Car Art Enthusiasts Display Their Masterpieces

OMAHA, Neb., Sept. 18, 2009— -- It started with a row of dentures just above the grill. Then another denture on the trunk, a used-up toothpaste tube, a toothbrush. ... Rex Rosenberg couldn't stop.

"I decided I wanted to glue something to some car," he said.

So Rosenberg, 63, created ChewBaru, The Mobile Masticator, formerly a totaled 1995 Subaru Legacy.

A few feet away, Richard Carter was surrounded by fish and lobsters, each of them belting out Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus." His car, christened the Sashimi Tabernacle Choir, is covered with about 250 plastic singing sea creatures: bass, trout, catfish, sharks and lobsters. It elicited giggles from the crowd, even from one muscular tattooed passerby.

More than two dozen car artists from all over the United States drove their creations to Omaha, Neb., for the Central Art Car Exhibit, held Sept. 5-7. They included Rosenberg, of Great Bend, Kan., and Carter of Houston.

Car artists spent hours, months and even years turning their cars into mobile canvases. And during the summer, they gather at art car shows around the country where spectators marvel at sights, such as a giant red telephone on wheels, a dinosaur car, a "yellow submarine," a gothic castle car, and a mini airplane.

Last weekend, the Hot Times Community Music and Arts Festival in Columbus, Ohio, featured art cars, and there's another art car show happening today in Washington, D.C., as part of the H Street Festival.

To those who think, "I could never do something like this," Carter says, "Well, that's absolutely wrong. All you have to do is to be nuts enough to think that you can do it and stick with it, and eventually it'll happen."

Peter Lochren, a 39-year-old artist from Omaha, Neb., launched the Central Art Car Exhibit a decade ago after attending a number of art car shows, including ones in San Francisco and the biggest one of all in Houston.

"My vision is to get it out there," Lochren said, "so they can see something that maybe they can say, 'I can do that myself.'"

Driving With Singing Lobsters

Carter, a mathematician, made it sound easy.

"Really, if you can put together wires and batteries, that was all it took," he said.

But over the past eight years, 30 or 35 people have worked on the 1984 Volvo, and according to Carter, the "singers" require a lot of maintenance and careful driving.

"Right at 20 mph, the first chorus of lobsters pops up," he said with a chuckle. "So it's kind of a secondary speedometer. And about at 23 mph the second chorus pops up."

Among the sea creatures in the choir, "Lobster Formerly Known As Larry" steals the show. This plastic lobster is the conductor. He zooms out in front of the car and waves his baton at the chorus as it performs its 30-song looped repertoire that includes anything from pop or country to opera.

Carter said opera is his favorite "because there's nothing more ridiculous than fish singing opera."

Hunter Mann, 50, who travelled to the car art show from Douglas, Ariz., drives a GMC van completely covered in brass. His godfather created the California Fantasy Van a decade ago, affixing so much stuff to it that the real cost of his car is now $350,000 -- almost 500 times more than its blue book value.

"You're not going to see me speeding with something this heavy," he said. "It's impossible."

But, he added, the police do pull him over regularly ... to take a picture or ask about the art.

"I've certainly never been given a ticket," he said.

Rosenberg, whose car features two mannequins mounted on the roof (one of the mannequins appears to be getting ready to brush the other's teeth), also gets asked to pose for photos. Rosenberg found both mannequins on eBay, just like most of the car's decorations.

The crucial find, Rosenberg said, was a 75-pound box of recycled dentures. Soon, people were handing him boxes of toothpaste tubes, dental impressions and their grandparents' dentures.

"The first person I told was my daughter and she said, 'Sick!'" he recalled. "And the next person I told said, 'Gross!'"

He said his cousin, a dentist who shares the same last name, jokingly requested Rosenberg spell his last name differently to prevent any association.

Rosenberg said he gets a lot of disgusted faces and sour expressions from passersby -- but every once in a while, he gets the thumbs-up.

No matter what the reaction, he always smiles and says, "Thank you."