Auto Aesthetics / Car Culture Daniel Wallwork
Prologue
In the past I have introduced Daniel Wallwork with the caveat: I have no interest in cars. This is misleading. On New Zealand’s remote high country roads during the 1960s I was often distracted by distant clouds of dust generated by ostentatious American cars driven by wealthy farmers. Chevrolets such as the Belair and Impala, Pontiacs and the occasional Cadillac could be seen parked in the streets of towns that serviced the booming provinces of meat, wheat and wool. My childhood fascination was heightened by Detroit’s campy advertising campaigns promising a better life-style through one’s choice of car. It became difficult to imagine picking up one’s fiancé in less than a Thunderbird. At the time, Australia’s Holden FB held little sway and the FJ was far from cute … yet.
I am extremely interested in cars: their design, their role as status symbols and their central role in the context of developing economies. Daniel Wallwork’s interest is similarly placed and can also be traced to childhood. As he says, ‘I don’t consider myself as a born ’n’ bred “rev head” … more as an automotive-aesthetic-appreciator. As a child I spent a lot of time polishing and racing toy cars on my father’s panel shop floor, vaguely aware that Dad was completing award-winning murals and paint jobs on Sandman panel vans and other Aussie muscle cars. From an early age, the automotive aesthetic and the greater car culture of Australia was a natural part of the world around me. Held at arms length through my lack of interest and understanding, it was not until completing an automotive spray painting trade that the realisation of this powerful sub-culture “driving” Australian... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline