Freewheeling art

If you see Greg Phelps, BSC '88, traveling in his 1990 Mazda Miata, you'll surely take a second look. Find out how he and other art car enthusiasts are making heads turn.

By Carmen Pease

The way Greg Phelps, BSC '88, gushes about his car and all the awe it inspires, you'd think he's cruising the highways in some straight-off-the-assembly-line Lamborghini, not a used 1990 Mazda Miata that's logged about 50,000 miles over the past five years. So what's so special about these wheels?

For starters, the car is covered in stripes of plastic toy cars, tea sets, yo-yos, baby doll heads, CDs and poker chips that he collects from friends, neighbors and strangers who want to add to his hodgepodge collection. This is what enthusiasts refer to as an art car, though to Phelps it's endearingly "That Car."

Rewind a couple decades and this is the same kid who, after a sun-baked day splashing at the community pool, goes out to be picked up by his mom … who pulls up in the family car she and a friend had decorated with those vinyl, floral stickers that go in the bottom of the bathtub to keep you from slipping. With this sort of ingenuity in his blood, the culminating factor that propelled Phelps to undertake the venture was realizing how the car can bring strangers together and help him meet new people.

"My art car is my daily car, so every day is a parade," Phelps, a Columbus event planner with National Ground Water Association, says about the car he's been decorating with three-dimensional objects since 1999. "It's wonderful to never experience road rage — it's a lot about public service. People notice the car and start smiling; I can do my good deed of the day without having to do anything."

Carmen Pease, BSJ '04, is a former student writer with University Communications and Marketing.

Related links

Watch a USA Today videoclip of an interview with Phelps and other art car owners

Art cars in cyberspace