Ode to a Cruiser

Driving my Chrysler PT Cruiser, it is not uncommon for me to pass another PT Cruiser going the other way and for the two of us drivers to wave to each other or nod with a smile. A silent high five; one PT Cruiser fan to another!

Obviously, I do not have a similar unspoken ritual going on when I am driving my other car, a Nissan Pulsar.

So, why the difference?

A few facts first: The PT (personal transport) Cruiser is a retro-styled compact car that was launched in 2000 by Chrysler. After 1.35 million cars sold worldwide, production of the Cruiser ended in 2010. While the 5-door hatchback was the original launch, a 2-door convertible was also launched in 2005.

Designed by Bryan Nesbitt (who was later behind the Chevrolet HHR), the car was manufactured primarily at the Toluca Assembly plant in Mexico.

The iconic design of the PT Cruiser is part of the rich heritage of unashamedly retro-styled cars like the Volkswagen Beetle and Mini Cooper. The Cruiser is specifically a modern day tribute to the bold hot rods of the American gangster era.

Some cars are personal statements of power and wealth. Some are meant to underline sophistication and class. And some others are just meant to put a smile on your face. The Cruiser does just that.

Yes, the turning radius of the Cruiser is clearly an issue and the acceleration is not something to write home about. But the individualistic, vintage look of the car made it something to aspire for (and not many compact cars are designed with that objective in mind). Affordable and contemporary, yet surrounded by an almost “collectable” aura, the Cruiser became a runaway hit when launched, spawning a number of fan clubs in many parts of the world (click here for the Australian PT Cruiser Community website). 

The first time I saw a picture of the Cruiser in a newspaper article around the time of its launch, I said to myself that I would someday own that vehicle. And years later when I did join the PT Cruiser family, it was a quiet thrill to feel a sense of indulgence without having to actually break the bank for it. It was not so much the fact that the Cruiser looks like no other car on the road. And it certainly had nothing to do with fuel efficiency or on-road performance (my Nissan Pulsar does a much better job at that). It was just the visceral feeling of driving a vehicle of amazing design that was clearly comfortable in its own vintage skin.

Perhaps, a psychologist will have a field day analysing the hidden triggers that make one a PT Cruiser fan or critic. It can be polarising. But, the one thing the car does not do is sit on the fence. By exuding an unmistakable vintage vibe, the Cruiser is either loved unconditionally or treated with derision by some. In the end, what it does is challenge our conventional pathways to establishing taste.

Quite often, we feel a need to follow every change in fashion to the point that we inevitably reach a boring sameness in our tastes. It is often a subconscious and powerful process of “mainstreaming”. But every once in a while, something comes along that is unafraid to look and feel as if from another age. And as old and naive as that age may have been, it refreshes our perspective today. A smart and simple way of turning the seemingly ‘uncool’ into something really cool!

5 Inspiring Examples of Art for Real Social Change

Much has been said about art being an indulgence that only the very rich can take advantage of. But here are five examples of artists leveraging their art to make a decisive difference in the lives of communities without the means.

Alejandro Aravena: My architectural philosophy? Bring the community into the process

The El Sistema music revolution - Jose Antonio Abreu

Haas&Hahn: How painting can transform communities

Theaster Gates: How to revive a neighborhood: with imagination, beauty and art

eL Seed: Street art with a message of hope and peace

LP Album Cover Art – Images that spoke as eloquently as the music

Amongst the most cherished possessions I recall from my childhood home is a superb collection of long playing (LP) records that my father had. This collection of vinyls opened up the world of Bach, Beethoven and Mozart to me. It also introduced me to ABBA, John Denver and Neil Diamond amongst many others.

To consider the music of this extremely diverse vinyl collection will require a book-length treatise. But in this article, I pay homage to the wonderful LP cover art that this collection had. Images of composers, instrumentalists, conductors, singers and bands that provided my young mind a visual reference point and launch pad into the music.

At the height of the LP format's popularity, great LP covers were art collectibles in themselves. The cover design and the liner notes for these vinyls were the focus of significant attention of the recording studios. This is understandable given the fact that the LP album packaging format provided the industry with 30 sq. cm. of real estate with which to entice and engage customers.  In fact, the LP cover as a cultural symbol drew the interest and involvement of a number of serious painters, illustrators, graphic artists and photographers, leading to the creation of some of the most iconic examples of album cover art. And those musicians with visual art skills invested much of their own time and effort in making their LP album covers a unique visual commentary on their music. A classic example is the great Canadian singer-songwriter, Joni Mitchell, who being a painter herself, designed her own album cover art right through a long and illustrious career.

Flicking through the LP collection at home in my mind's eye now, I must admit that some LP cover art there was ordinary. But the great ones remain for me indelible visual signposts of a world of music that has been a ‘changeless friend’ to me all these years.

The LP - as a recording format - died a slow death starting from the 1980s, by which time cassettes and later compact discs emerged as default formats for recorded music. The pleasant surprise though has been the resurgence of the LP in this age of digital downloads (even if the number of new vinyls released is negligible and mainly focused on catering to DJs and audiophiles).

Fortunately for all fans of album cover art, the age of digital music has not meant abandoning visual packaging entirely. Album covers remain - only no longer on a physical product and certainly without the luxury of the 30 sq. cm. canvass.

There is a lot that excites and inspires in cover art across genres – rock, pop, jazz, folk, country…virtually every type of music. Some shock with their in-your-face bravado both in image content and design. Some astound with the brilliance of their imagery. Some speak to us in subtle and hushed tones. But to celebrate the amazing power of great LP cover art, I have selected for this article a few examples from the catalogue of just one artist - Herbert von Karajan. These are examples from LPs recorded by not only one of the greatest conductors of all time, but an artist who instinctively understood the power of the visual in the world of music and used it effectively on his way to becoming the most successful recording artist in classical music history.