To celebrate Leonardo da Vinci’s birthday this month, Volkswagen has made a list of the most colorful and creative VWs, customized by artists from around the world.
Let us know your favorites by voting in our poll at the bottom of the page.
The ‘Million dollars‘ Scirocco
Photos from Volkswagen
This wild, rainbow-colored 1980 Scirocco S was a 10-year project by Jason Whipple, co-founder of Rotiform Wheels, and British graphic artist Nicolai Sclater.
What began as a pure white blank canvas turned into a progressive and colorful optical illusion with a hand-painted rainbow motif and insightful sentences like “Things won’t change until we do” written in blurry letters.
Whipple says everything under the hood is 100 percent custom, including the replaced gearbox, handcrafted engine, and new engine management system.
So why is it called the “Million Dollar” Scirocco? Because at the time Whipple felt he was going to spend a million dollars on rebuilding it.
The Vochol
The Vochol Beetle in the Museo de Arte Popular in Mexico City | Photos of the Association of Friends of the Museum of Folk Art
Covered with over 2.2 million glass beads depicting geometric patterns and scenes of animals and plants, the “Vochol” represents the enduring traditions of the indigenous communities of Mexico.
“The name ‘Vochol’ is a combination of ‘Vocho’, a common name for Volkswagen Beetles in Mexico, and ‘Huichol’, another name for the Wixárika indigenous group in the western states of Nayarit and Jalisco, Mexico,” said Volkswagen into his story of this pearl-studded masterpiece.
Commissioned in 2010, a team of eight artists from two Huichol families carefully hand-decorated the chassis and interior of the 1990s Beatle. It took over 9,000 hours to complete.
Wood storage ‘s ‘Light’ bus
One of the most famous VW vans of all time is Bob Grimm’s psychedelic “Magic Bus”, which became an icon in 1969 at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair.
Volkswagen
Painted by the artist Robert “Dr. Bob ”Hieronimus 1968 the bus is adorned with colorful cosmic symbols, archetypal motifs and words in ancient languages that symbolized the summer of love.
For Woodstock’s 50th anniversary in 2017, Hieronimus planned to make a documentary restoring the old psychedelic van, but he and Grimm couldn’t remember where they left it 50 years ago. After an extensive search with researchers, private detectives and even a clairvoyant, the bus was never found.
They gave up their search in 2018 and decided to create an exact replica now known as the “Light” bus.
For more information, see Hieronimus’ documentary entitled The Woodstock Bus.
The wedding beetle
Volkswagen
This whimsical iron-body beetle was created by Mexico City’s welder and blacksmith Rafael Esparza-Prieto to make your Cinderella dreams come true.
In 1968, Esparza-Prieto built the skeleton of this beetle out of white wrought iron and filled the gaps with floral patterns and decorative swirls.
Overwhelmed by his talent, Volkswagen commissioned Esparza-Prieto to create two more wedding beetles to be exhibited at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.
Esparza-Prieto emigrated to California, where he built another pair of wedding beetles. Other welders created the magical beetle in his honor. Today there are a total of 23 wedding beetles worldwide that are exhibited in museums or kept in private collections.
The mountainous masterpiece
Volkswagen
As the official sponsorship vehicle for the Professional Ski Instructors of America and the American Association of Snowboard Instructors in 2017, Volkswagen gave the PSIA-AASI operational management team a new Atlas, Tiguan and Gold Alltrack for its fleet of support vehicles.
To highlight these SUVs in the snow, Volkswagen commissioned Pacific Northwest artist Mimi Kvinge to do a colorful makeover.
Kvinge painted a beautiful mountain landscape with a bright blue sky on each vehicle.
