This surreal looking project shown here is known as the 2018 Fat Car Convertible by the very talented Austrian contemporary artist, Erwin Wurm. If you haven’t heard of @erwinwurm, you are certainly missing out, as he has generated some of the most fascinating works over the course of his career. One of Mr. Wurm’s philosophies in regards to sculpture is the idea that one must either add or subtract material from an object. With the idea of this in mind, one of Wurm’s most impressive realizations as an artist is known as the ‘Fat Car’ project. Using the chassis of a real Porsche, this surreal looking design is created by using plaster, epoxy resin, and polyurethane foam coated with lacquer, resulting in a car that now looks ‘fat’. The idea behind the ‘Fat Car’ project is to poke at the link between power, wealth and body weight. Wurm believes that cars can be representative of numerous things such as taste, wealth, and class, and in order to exploit the pretentiousness of this thinking, he instead decided to make cars that were literally fat in design. The over-exaggerated lines, folds, and shapes shown on this Fat Car is what Wurm believed would be more of a revolutionary way to make a statement, as opposed to the art trend of the 1990s and early 2000s of making cars smaller, and we certainly agree. The first ever Fat Car made its debut in 2004 and was quickly followed up by the ‘UFO’, a flat design with no wheels. Of course, unlike humans, vehicles cannot grow any larger or age similarly to the human body, but Wurm’s Fat Car project suggests the idea that ‘what if’ cars could undergo the biological mechanism of growing fat. Part of the project is to make one ponder on the ideas of what perfection is, and while the cars themselves may appear silly, truly what the artist has done is create something that genuinely makes you question some common social values within the world.
How many made? A small number of ‘Fat Cars’ have been produced over time, however, this one appears to be one-of-a-kind
Engine: n/a
Debut: Wurm debuted the ‘Fat Convertible’ Porsche in 2004
Top Speed: n/a
0-60mph: n/a
Photo Credit: David Wootton
Research: @rarecarsonly