[imagesource:pexels]

Motorists travelling along the old Route 66 near Amarillo, Texas, often gape at the sight of ten Cadillacs protruding tail-end out of the desert. As weird as their sight may be, the story of how they ended up ass-skywards is equally interesting.

The now-famous Cadillac Range was the brainchild of San Francisco-based architectural collective Ant Farm, and for the last 50 years, the installation has been considered the Stonehenge of American car culture, attracting nearly 1.4 million visitors a year.

While Ant Farm spent most of its ten-year career criticising the ‘mass media’ Cadillac Ranch has been quite lucrative for the group, spawning restaurants, spin-offs, and merchandise (an ode to Cadillac Ranch even appeared in the 2006 animated film Cars) – all of which they profit from seeing as they trademarked the ‘art installation’.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Jason Hudson (@dream.tones)

Despite being better known for their ‘radical politics’, founders Chip Lord and Doug Michels say the idea simply honours the rise and fall of the short-lived but iconic Cadillac tail fin.

“We were car crazy, always drawing cars, collaging cars, making art with cars. I had an idea to make seed packs where you could plant seeds that would grow cars.”

Legend has it that they acquired a list of American millionaires who might be interested in funding their zany idea. Ant Farm connected with eccentric Amarillo millionaire Stanley Marsh III, who asked them to draft a proposal for Cadillac Ranch. Their blueprint featured a simple budget for a digger and cars. After deliberation, Marsh offered the funds and a wheat field to house the work.

Ant Farm spent six weeks at Marsh’s estate while placing ads in local papers looking for used Cadillacs, specifically those featuring tail fins, from the 1963 Sedan de Ville to the 1949 Club Sedan, the latter proving to be the hardest to find.

According to Wyatt McSpadden, who worked at the estate, “They finally found one on the east side of town over on the poor side of town”.

“A guy had restored it and was charging them way more money than they wanted. When they got the title, Michels bashed the front end of the car to piss him off. It didn’t matter. That part was going into the ground.”

Less than a week later, and timed to the summer solstice, the caddies were planted in a chronological line, facing west.

But this being Texas, pretty soon people were shooting the hell out of the Cadillacs. Then, the graffiti started. Sometimes the cars would get painted all grey or pink until eventually the cleanup crews just gave up.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by JoeFlo (@joeflo562)

In 1997, Cadillac Ranch moved west of the installation and the sight became less visited, but then social media and Instagram exploded and interest in the multi-coloured cars boomed, along with a new wave of graffiti artists.  It’s become such a tradition for visitors, that the owner even installed a truck selling spray paint to visitors.

Today the Cadillacs and their pretty fins are all but destroyed. Some believe that it needs to be restored to its former glory, but original Ant Farm founder, Chip Lord, reckons it needs to decay into nothingness. It’s all part of the art after all.

[source:artnet]