A Monster is Born

Recently, the idea got in my head that it would be fun and exciting
to buy a beater and paint it vibrant and garish colors. I knew which kind of car I wanted but I couldn't remember what make or model it was, however, I did remember that it was in the opening of the movie "The Birdcage".

I spent the next few minutes in a desperate search for the mystery car. Finally I came upon a picture of a 1993 Geo Tracker. I had found my car.

I still didn't know how I wanted the car to look. I knew I wanted it to be campy/kitsch, perhaps reminiscent of the 80s. I considered many ideas over a period of about two weeks exploring the possibility of emblazoning the car with Zebra stripes, Pacman, artwork from a Junior Senior album, Bill Cosby's sweater designs, and the vibrant and stunning style from the Mika "Relax, take it easy" music video. I was at a complete and total loss.

All the sudden, having been hit with a brainwave, I knew what I wanted. I wanted to super-impose Mondrian's Composition II in Red, Blue and Yellow. But then I didn't. I realized it would be much cooler to paint the car as a token of Keith Haring's late 80s artworks. As I cruised through the official website I found a glorious painted BMW.

It was exactly what I wanted the Tracker to look like. Sort of. Different colors perhaps? It didn't matter. I knew I wanted to the car to be Keith Haring-esque. I could work from there. What exactly I would paint remained a mystery. How I would paint it, also a mystery. I figure some art student would kill to get their greasy paws on something like this, though.

Having identified the dream car and scoured the web for images for an appropriate paint job, I came to the biggest problem. Cashola. I had found several Trackers online for muy poco dinero (thanks Elliott). Even though some of them were to be had for as little as $600, I had no money at all.

I began looking for a job and being that it was the cusp of summer, I knew I had the time. Finally, I settled on submitting an application for Speedway. I based my profit scheme off of the following formula:

18 hours a day x 6 days a week x 18 days (3 weeks) x $7 an hours = Roughly $2268

I figured $2268 would cover the cost of purchase, shipping (if needed), restoration and painting. If not, I could work an additional week for an additional $756. I figured that 3-4 weeks of hell would be worth it for the beautiful tracker.

There's still quite a ways to go and I haven't gotten message back from Speedway about the job but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I'm satisfied that I finally came up with a real idea of what the car should look like and I'll keep you posted on how things are going down with the project. Shame about the Mondrain idea though. I think I'll do it next summer on a Geo Metro.

~Tschuss for now.