If this sculpture were in a museum, it’s uncertain how it would be judged. Apart from its obvious automotive origin, how would we view it?
In some respects, this 1958 Oldsmobile, parked outside a grocery store, is laughable – too much chrome? Too overstated? Yup, maybe so. But also perhaps forgivable, in an age absorbed with rocket technology, fins and dreams of futuristic ideals.
As an overstatement, it’s a bit like Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral; there’s way too much going on here.
But maybe that’s why we find this treatment so fascinating. Unlike the ubiquitous boxes of today’s identical-DNA automotive generation (and, likewise, many standard-boxed non-Crystal Cathedral churches appearing in strip centers), it shouts “There is no other one like this!”
And, after all, isn’t that what we’re all wishing for?
It’s like nothing else. It soars. It’s unforgettable. Just what we’d want from a car and a cathedral.
And ourselves.