Photo: Cars & Bids/gkm616
A very intriguing piece of art has become available for purchase, again. It might not look like it, but it’s actually a car. A road-legal one, nonetheless.
If you like your cars more… unlike any other car out there, you’re in the right place. The Consumer Car concept, which was created in 2016 and has been on display at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, is now being offered on Doug DeMuro’s Cars & Bids platform.
The Consumer defies automotive expectations on purpose. Designed and built by designer slash artist Joey Ruitner, it aims to disrupt. Most of Ruitner’s work focuses on minimalism and what is left of common things once we reduce them to their most basic. In the case of the automobile, the answer seems to be: a box with wheels and a steering wheel.
Based on a 1993 Ford Festiva, the Consumer has a hand-formed steel bodywork, covered with sugarcane-based Xorel fabric. Visually, it’s a box with hidden wheels, into which you mount by using the hidden steps. The cabin is, again, stripped down to the minimum. You have a steering wheel and the shifter, no gauges, no radio, no HVAC, nothing. Seating is for four, and they all get lap seatbelts.
The front of the Consumer is a two-side mirror with hidden LEDs. At night, the LEDs shine bright with all their 54,000 lumens, but during daytime drives, the mirror reflects surrounding objects. Having drivers in incoming traffic see themselves and their own vehicles into the two-side mirror must be a commentary of some sorts; we have a feeling that the nature of this commentary is relative to whoever is making it.
Power for the Consumer comes from a tiny Mazda-supplied 1.3-liter inline-4 engine, rated at 63 hp and 73 lb-ft (99 Nm) of torque, mated to a 5-speed manual transmission.
Ruitner sold the car to a dealer in February this year. Right away, Garage Kept Motors listed it, with an asking price of $74,900 (!). It is being offered out of Michigan where, get this, it is road-legal. To that end, it has a taillight, rear license plate holder, and side mirrors. The seller advises that it could be road-legal in other states as well, but verification depends on the buyer.
Not that you’d want to drive it that much, even if it is. It has no grille to allow the air to pass through to the radiator and no dashboard instrumentation to tell if something is wrong. Still, it’s a unique piece of automotive art, as attested by its nearly yearlong display at the Petersen Museum, as part of the Disruptors exhibit.
As of the time of press, bidding sits at $9,300, with just one day left into the auction. Without putting negativity into the universe, seeing the low level in interest in it compared to the original asking price last month, it doesn't look like the Consumer is about to find a new loving owner right now.
The Consumer defies automotive expectations on purpose. Designed and built by designer slash artist Joey Ruitner, it aims to disrupt. Most of Ruitner’s work focuses on minimalism and what is left of common things once we reduce them to their most basic. In the case of the automobile, the answer seems to be: a box with wheels and a steering wheel.
Based on a 1993 Ford Festiva, the Consumer has a hand-formed steel bodywork, covered with sugarcane-based Xorel fabric. Visually, it’s a box with hidden wheels, into which you mount by using the hidden steps. The cabin is, again, stripped down to the minimum. You have a steering wheel and the shifter, no gauges, no radio, no HVAC, nothing. Seating is for four, and they all get lap seatbelts.
The front of the Consumer is a two-side mirror with hidden LEDs. At night, the LEDs shine bright with all their 54,000 lumens, but during daytime drives, the mirror reflects surrounding objects. Having drivers in incoming traffic see themselves and their own vehicles into the two-side mirror must be a commentary of some sorts; we have a feeling that the nature of this commentary is relative to whoever is making it.
Power for the Consumer comes from a tiny Mazda-supplied 1.3-liter inline-4 engine, rated at 63 hp and 73 lb-ft (99 Nm) of torque, mated to a 5-speed manual transmission.
Ruitner sold the car to a dealer in February this year. Right away, Garage Kept Motors listed it, with an asking price of $74,900 (!). It is being offered out of Michigan where, get this, it is road-legal. To that end, it has a taillight, rear license plate holder, and side mirrors. The seller advises that it could be road-legal in other states as well, but verification depends on the buyer.
Not that you’d want to drive it that much, even if it is. It has no grille to allow the air to pass through to the radiator and no dashboard instrumentation to tell if something is wrong. Still, it’s a unique piece of automotive art, as attested by its nearly yearlong display at the Petersen Museum, as part of the Disruptors exhibit.
As of the time of press, bidding sits at $9,300, with just one day left into the auction. Without putting negativity into the universe, seeing the low level in interest in it compared to the original asking price last month, it doesn't look like the Consumer is about to find a new loving owner right now.
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