Last week, I was out on the West coast. One of the goals of my visit was to pop in to the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, but that was not to be. They're closed until around October while they build a new facility. No matter, there was plenty to do anyway, and instead, I spent that time at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. I bring that up because longtime readers may recall a post about the Porsche 911 wherein I compared the car to Ingres' Odalisque, which is one of the masterpieces I got to see in person at LACMA. -As a side note, the Odalisque is a masterwork I've been seeing in art text books for years, from Survey of Art History 101 freshman year of college up through grad school. While the captions that list the artist, media and dimensions should have made it clear, one never thinks about the scale until seeing it in person. The Odalisque is actually quite a tiny little piece of perfection and beauty, smaller than a piece of paper, really. So tiny, but such a mammoth piece of art. Go see it if you're in LA sometime -or look at the super grainy and slightly out of focus snapshot of it I have here - up to you.
Anyway, prior to the time I spent in LA, I went with my niece and nephew to Disneyland, and also to a Star Wars convention. I'm not a Star Wars fan, but there are lots of people who are really into it, including my brother in law and my sister, who were running a diorama exhibit activity at the convention. They were there all week, whereas I, mercifully, was only there for a day -it was an amazing experience to see how all out some people go for something they really like, but it's actually kind of overwhelming, too... What a day it was, though. And because my mom raised me to share, I've returned from my excursion to the Star Wars convention with some photos of Star Wars cars for us all to gape at.
We'll start with this totally custom built Darth Vader car that was on display at the Hot Wheels booth. It's an up-sized version of the little Hot Wheels toy.
And now on to the fan-mobiles.
We'll kick this section off with a mild custom Star Wars car. This is a 2005-2009 Mustang GT convertible with a Darth Vader wrap on the hood and some smoked lenses on the tail lights.
Next to the Vader Stang was a Ford Raptor with a flaming Darth Vader graphic wrap. And it's rockin' some Iowa license plates. It's come a long way to get to the convention.
And to finish up the American car lineup in our Star Wars collection, we've got a Pontiac Firebird with a special mech droid plugged into the trunk lid.
The pink R2D2 is actually called R2-KT, and its origin is kind of sad. A Star Wars fan who founded a fan organizatin called the 501st Legion had a daughter named Katie who was dying from brain cancer (thus the KT part of the R2-KT). He wanted to build a pink droid for her, and from my understanding, ran out of time and ended up getting some help from an R2 Builders Club (incidentally, I saw several R2D2 droid replicas roaming about the convention and they were very impressive). Anyway, they built a radio control droid in pink and it was taken around to hospitals to visit ailing kids. The character showed up in a Star Wars cartoon and Hasbro produced an action figure of it. The character made more appearances in Star Wars cartoons as an homage, and was eventually renamed QT-KT to avoid confusion with R2D2. So, while the Firebird isn't the most impressive custom build of the cars I saw, it does have something special with the QT-KT/R2KT on the back end.
On to the Imports:
First in this category, we have a Nissan 350Z roadster
Next, a Honda Civic Del Sol
And just in case you thought we were going to leave out the classic family sedan, here's a Toyota Camry that's been upfitted with some Star Wars bling.
Moving from Japan to South Korean made cars, we've got a pair of Hyundais representing.
First up is a Hyundai Tiburon
And lastly, a Hyundai Veloster wearing a Boba Fett outfit -note the plate says its from Wisconsin. They must have really racked up the miles on the road trip to the Star Wars convention driving all the way from the Dairy state. I think this one is my favorite.
So there you have it. Star Wars cars.
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