Blizzard on the Cadillac Ranch

[Bo Zarts]

Texas Panhandle - November 2018
©2018 Bo Zarts Studio

[hlthe2b]

1. Cool! (no pun intended). I've heard about these semi-buried Cadillacs, but never seen them...

Are these the ones with the fins? I had a piano teacher, Mrs. Franklin, when I was very young, who had three of those that absolutely dwarfed her driveway and little house. It was pretty hilarious as I don't think these big-finned Caddies were very common anymore even then.

[UpInArms]

4. Here's the story

https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-how-cadillac-ranch-became-a-texas-legend

Marsh granted them a budget of $3,000 to purchase 10 models spanning the years between 1949 and 1964. Together, the cars offered a time-lapse view of the evolution of the Cadillac tailfin. The trio scoured the Texas Panhandle for several weeks, visiting junkyards and answering for-sale ads. The 1957 Sedan DeVille was particularly difficult to track down; in fact, Lord said they started burying the other cars before they found one, leaving a space for it to eventually be slotted in.

“The Cadillac tailfin changed from year to year, and each year the old one went out of style,” Marquez explained. “People would say: ‘’56 tailfin, damn, it’s different, better get a new one! ’57—whoa, that’s really different, better get a new one.’ It was a consumer culture of planned obsolescence. Since Cadillac was the top of the line, they proudly proclaimed themselves to be the best car in the world,” he continued. “That was total horseshit, of course, but most Americans just bought that hook, line, and sinker. So that’s what Cadillac Ranch is about. And it’s a goof on Texas too, the mythical Texas oilman who dumps his Cadillac when the ashtray gets full.”

…

Originally, Amarillo natives didn’t know quite what to think of Cadillac Ranch. They didn’t much like Marsh—a liberal Democrat who would “say anything,” as McSpadden put it—and so they weren’t quite sure if they liked the art he commissioned, either. But time passed, and slowly the sculpture became one of the town’s most beloved landmarks. Paradoxically, a work meant to poke fun at America’s mass media and culture has been subsumed, in many ways, by the very thing it meant to critique. It’s appeared as the backdrop of a number of advertising campaigns, and Bruce Springsteen even wrote a song inspired by the site.

[hlthe2b]

5. Thanks! Fascinating...

[markodochartaigh]

2. I grew up in Amarillo a half century ago.

Amarillo used to get real blizzards. Now they get a few inches a year. In the old days snow would be on the ground for months. I remember -16°. Now nights below 0° only happen a couple of times in a winter. The wind is still there. 24/7/365 or 366.

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[UpInArms]

3. I lived there when they were shiny and new

The Cadillac ranch still rocks

Thanks for posting