How to look sharp, with a Sharpied Car

I love a car with personality. Just today, I had a chat with a friend of mine who recently bought an old Honda, a ‘beater’ in desperate need of a paint job. He has a talent for the arts – Paint runs through his veins, so to speak. So, I recommended he graffiti his car. He didn’t take my advice (after all, it is a ’92 Honda Civic), but it did help us uncover what it could have been.

Sharpie Car Art

After our conversation, I came across Core77’s piece on Sharpie Car Art. If you’re unaware, a Sharpie is a permanent marker highly favoured by street artists. In this case, it makes for a great medium to alter the look of your car, especially if your car is the ‘victim’ of artist Chris Dunlop, also known as Pinstrip Chris.

I get lost in this sort of work – it’s really beautiful stuff. When you return to each picture, you notice new detail, new patterns you hadn’t noticed before.

Pinstrip Chris (who I prefer to imagine as a tuxedoed man with a top hat and giant sharpie for a cane) was inspired by the famous ‘Sharpie Lamborghini’ experiment. In 2007, Brett Davis hired the capable hands of Maimi-based graffiti artist Jona Cerwinske. Brett was only 19 and had just inherited his father’s Lamborghini dealership. As a way to honour his father and promote the dealership, he passed along papers and photos from his father to Cerwinske as working material. What came out – I haven’t words. They’re completely useless at this point.