There is a consensus around art cars which attributes to the medium a kind of hippy, outsider art image. This is perhaps given a little bit of a shake by the fact that Houston is one of many cities to have an officially sanctioned art car parade – cities are never likely to give the nod to anything that is completely incompatible with commercialism. Nonetheless, there is a strong strain of liberal, easy going style in the world of art cars, and among its practitioners this is perhaps the overriding mood. A quick reference to the list of award winners at the Houston Art Car Parade of May 2009 shows that this year’s Participants’ Choice was a little piece by the name of Psychedelic Surfer Dude.

Psychedelic Surfer Dude is a restored 1963 Porsche 356 owned by David Duthu but painted by the ultra-talented car artist Robynn Sanders. Sanders’ last contribution to the Art Car Parade was another remarkable piece – she worked on Drew Bettge’s Hen-a-tron, a 14-foot tall chicken. Psychedelic Surfer Dude is another thing entirely. All Robynn’s brainchild, the converted Porsche now has a psychedelic paint job and turned into something of a hippy mother ship. It has clearly gone down well with the art car fraternity, as the participants in the parade gave it their nod as the best piece in the entire parade – arguably the most prestigious of all the awards, coming as it does from fellow artists. It is certainly a piece that will stick in the mind, much like Hen-a-tron.