With artists ranging from Andy Warhol to Sandro Chia and Jeff Koons having painted or designed cars for BMW, it’s likely they are the most famous car marque known for art cars. However, Porsche is no stranger to them either. Officially, Porsche put a toe in the water of art cars with their exhibition of 24 painted GT2 bonnets at their Museum in late 2011. Unofficially, Porsche has been knee deep in that world for a long time. Perhaps the most famous of which is Janis Joplin’s 356. Now, long-time friend and sponsor of FLATSIXES.com, Nicolas Hunziker, is producing an art car of his own, with a twist. Rather than turning a Porsche into a canvas, Hunziker will be building a 911 in exchange for his art.
Nicolas’ art car project will be wholly paid for by trading original art work for everything from modifications to the Porsche itself. He already found his base car, a 996 GT3, in Nova Scotia and paid for it with two original paintings. Rather than shipping the 911 home, shipping from Nova Scotia being very expensive, this project will start with a cross-country roadtrip from Nova Scotia to Los Angeles [FLATSIXES.com contributor Brett Sloan will be going along for the ride to document the trip for Hunziker].
Once the Porsche is home, the real build will start. Each step of the process will be paid for with original art. As Nicolas says “I will trade you the equivalent value in art. Let’s say you provide the wheels that I’m looking for and we agree that the value of the wheels is $8,000, in that case you will receive $8,000 of my artwork.” For Hunziker this project is about tying the intrinsic value of his artwork to the more concrete and understood value of the parts and modifications needed for the Porsche. The rules for this project are laid out here.
The goal in this process is to use a standard 996 GT3 street car to create a 996 GT3R street car. The 996 GT3R was the first 996 GT3 racecar, and is based on the standard narrow bodyshell. Hunziker will be backdating his new 996.2 GT3 to evoke his hypothetical 996.1 GT3R “Strassenversion.” A list of parts and services needed to complete the project can be found here.
Updates to the project will be posted to the Hunziker blog. The first three posts are up already, and include photos of the donor 911, the plan, and the planned route to get the car home to LA.