Cadillac Ranch, and perhaps your local oddities as well

[freeedr]

Ah, yes. Cadillac Ranch. Created in 1974 as a public art installation, then moved in 1997 to its current location to get away from the Western edge of town a bit more. (Soncy street, the extreme West edge of Amarillo, is the busiest place of commerce in town)
Created by art group "Ant Farm", and funded by local bloated douchbag eccentric mega-millionaire Stanley Marsh 3, it supposedly makes a statement about the clash of Americana, a sense of place, and the freedom of the open highway (Which it is directly next to.) They also highlight the appearance and disappearance of the exaggerated Cadillac tailfin of the '50s. The cars are buried at an angle matching the Great Pyramid of Giza. Marsh hires all manner of drifting strange people (including a family member or two) to do things like this. Those who follow "Punk" culture, if there is such a thing (oh ho!), may recognize one of his former workers, Brain Deneke.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Deneke
I met both him and his killer, because I went to the same school as them, right across the street from the fight scene by the way! The spot Brian was killed on was recently torn out to build a new strip mall.

More recently he's had workers installing strange faux-road signs in a project called "Dynamite Museum." Google Image Search will probably have images if you care to see.

Yes, Marsh is some sort of attention-mongering jackass, but he does some good philanthropy too. Meh.

Anyway, on to Cadillac Ranch!



Ah, yes. Countless layers of graffiti. It seems inches thick in some places even though they occasionally clean it off. It was pretty busy on this day, being a weekend. Lots of travellers. If I was expecting to share these on the internet I would have taken pics of the gate and the walk to get to the cars, etc.




One of my favorite parts is seeing how many different places people come in from / mark on the cars.



The wheels still turn, too!



Thank you for the insight, philosophy-graffiti guy!



Get 'em started on vandalism while they're young.
(No, it isn't real vandalism. The painting is the whole point now.)



Hello there! Enjoying the shade under that fine automobile?




My brother (and sometimes fellow Quest player) being hilarious with the ol' paint can.




So, if anybody even reads this thread, please post your own local oddities, preferably with your own picture and backstory if possible. If they involve eccentric millionaires, that's a plus.

[Hrothgar]

i like that last pic free ... way to stick it to the man?

[freeedr]

i like that last pic free ... way to stick it to the man?

Yeah, the man that reeeeaally wants you to paint on his cars to add to their notoriety.

[Nitemare]

Nice paint job. I'd drive that half caddy.

[fingolfin]

Well the title of the thread does say local oddities. I happen to live near the largest tire in the world. Anyone driving through the detroit area has most likely seen it, but for those of you who have not-



This is a lil blurb from a site explaining it-

The Statue of Liberty has its fans, but perhaps a more fitting giant symbol of America stands beside I-94, near the Detroit Metro Airport. It is the World's Largest Tire and it is an automobile tire, thank you, not a tire to some fruit-loopey pivoting windmill or solar cell.

This 12-ton, 80-foot-tall behemoth was built to withstand hurricane-force winds, and served as a ferris wheel (and a huge advertisement for Uniroyal) at the 1964-65 New York World's Fair. Twenty-four gondolas circled the tire where the treads are today, carrying nearly two million people. The tire was moved to Allen Park in 1966 and, although urban legends tell of it breaking loose and rolling across I-94, there's no evidence that this has ever happened.

In 1998 Uniroyal stabbed the tire with a 11-foot-long, 250-pound nail -- another "world's largest" -- to promote their puncture-resistant Tiger Paw Nailgard tire. The big tire withstood the assault and the nail was eventually removed and given to Allen Park, which then put it up for sale on eBay in 2003 to raise money for a local historical society. The city hoped that someone would pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for the nail, the final price paid by local businessman Ralph Roberts was $3,000 (Roberts lends out the nail for local events).

The original tire was a bias-ply whitewall with a mid-1960s hubcap. It has undergone several renovations over the years, and we hear that it is again being updated.

[Alexis]

http://www.roadsideamerica.com

That Site has some really odd travel destinations as well as information about Cadillac ranch. We used it at work.

[freeedr]

It has rapidly become apparent to me that that tire is awesome. The only giant ________ here that I can think of is this:




I'll get info later, but I believe these giant legs were also funded by Marsh. They even gave their own fake historical marker that calls them "ruins" discovered in the early 1800s. They have not quite been there that long; I can assure you.