Painted Motors
  • Stages 12
  • Plates Blank
  • People None
  • Cancel Within the hour

Same car. Different century.

One photograph of your car, painted into motoring’s posters

Send a photograph of your car, motorcycle, truck, tractor or camper van. We put it on the Monza banking, under a Deco salon’s dome or outside a desert motel by painting the century around it and leaving the vehicle alone.

Paint My CarSee The Stages
A sea-foam green 1950s pickup with a white roof and whitewall tyres, painted as an Art Deco lithograph on a black marble floor under a silver dome, jade banners either side
The same pickup as an ordinary photograph on grey concrete, before the painting
As photographedBefore
SS 04 · Salon 1929The same truck, grille, whitewalls and roof line untouched. A test vehicle we generated, not a customer’s.

Twelve stages, four legs

Each stage is one recipe, painted here on two test vehicles: a primrose GT coupé on wire wheels and a sea-foam pickup on whitewalls. Read across a row and the century changes. Read down the pictures and the cars do not.

The Grand Prix

Racing posters in the line of Geo Ham and Roger Soubie: gouache, airbrush and stone, 1929 to 1960.

  1. SS01Monza 1934Gouache racing poster, banked concrete, litho grainYour car at Monza, 1934Primrose painted as Monza 1934Seafoam painted as Monza 1934
  2. SS02Riviera 1937Harbour circuit from above, turquoise sea, flat colourYour car through the harbour hairpinPrimrose painted as Riviera 1937Seafoam painted as Riviera 1937
  3. SS03Night Stint 1955Endurance poster, rain, headlamps, midnight blueYour car out of the night, 1955Primrose painted as Night Stint 1955Seafoam painted as Night Stint 1955

The Concours

Art Deco lithographs, stencil prints and the coachbuilders’ own catalogue plates.

  1. SS04Salon 1929Art Deco lithograph, sunburst, silver and blackYour car on the motor-show posterPrimrose painted as Salon 1929Seafoam painted as Salon 1929
  2. SS05Coachbuilder 1936Catalogue plate in gouache, villa, airbrushed skyYour car in the coachbuilder’s cataloguePrimrose painted as Coachbuilder 1936Seafoam painted as Coachbuilder 1936
  3. SS06Pochoir 1925Hand-stencilled gouache, jewel colour, fine ink lineYour car in the gazette, by stencilPrimrose painted as Pochoir 1925Seafoam painted as Pochoir 1925

The Garage

Your car as a painted object: thick oil, cold-pressed watercolour and a Dutch still life.

  1. SS07Impasto OilPalette knife on linen, hard afternoon sunYour car in thick oil paintPrimrose painted as Impasto OilSeafoam painted as Impasto Oil
  2. SS08Barn WatercolourCold-pressed cotton, light through the boardsYour car in the barn, in watercolourPrimrose painted as Barn WatercolourSeafoam painted as Barn Watercolour
  3. SS09Lantern Still LifeDutch still life, one lantern, glazed oilYour car under the lanternPrimrose painted as Lantern Still LifeSeafoam painted as Lantern Still Life

The Strip

Chrome, neon and metalflake from the American roadside, with no copy on any of it.

  1. SS10Kustom FlakeCandy, metalflake and one-stroke pinstripeYour car on the show boardPrimrose painted as Kustom FlakeSeafoam painted as Kustom Flake
  2. SS11Neon NightGouache night, bent glass, wet asphaltYour car under the motel neonPrimrose painted as Neon NightSeafoam painted as Neon Night
  3. SS12Magazine 1958Illustrated advertisement, no copy, golden hourYour car on the magazine spreadPrimrose painted as Magazine 1958Seafoam painted as Magazine 1958

Bring your car

One vehicle, whole in frame, nobody standing in the shot. Your make, model, wheels and colour stay as photographed. Looking is free, and you pay only when one deserves a wall.

Pick the stage

The Grand Prix

The Concours

The Garage

The Strip

Monza 1934

Your car at Monza, 1934

Four passes on the house. A pass paints your photograph twice: the poster and the wide. Your photograph goes to the engine twice, once per shape, and is not kept. Every stage comes back twice, the upright poster and the wide, and you choose at the till.

A pale primrose 1960s GT coupé on wire wheels, painted as a 1955 endurance poster: rain, headlamps on, an empty pit lane in midnight blueThe same coupé as an ordinary photograph, before the render

Night Stint 1955

A test vehicle we generated, not a customer’s. Yours replaces it.

Your own vehicle, or one you have the right to photograph. Plates render blank.

Then the wide

The poster stands your car upright on the sheet. The wide puts it in the place: the pit lane, the harbour, the motel forecourt. Every render comes back in both shapes, and you choose at the till. Three of the twenty-four, dealt fresh for every visit.

Three of twenty-four. Every stage has its wide, and every render you make comes back in both shapes.

Scrutineering, then the stage

A painting that changes the car is a painting of somebody else’s car. We would rather refuse a render than send one with the wrong grille.

  1. 01One photograph. The whole vehicle, three-quarter front is best, in daylight. Phone photos are fine. A photograph of anything else is refused before the engine sees it, and nothing is counted.
  2. 02One stage. The same recipe that painted the two test vehicles is run on yours. The prompt is built on our server, not in your browser, so what you get is the stage you chose.
  3. 03About ninety seconds. The poster lands at 1024 × 1536 and the wide at 1536 × 1024. What you see on screen is what goes to the printer, rebuilt at print resolution the moment you pay.
  4. 04Your words, if you want them. The type desk sets your car’s own name, its year and its place in the type of the poster’s decade. Makers’ names and races’ names stay off: they belong to the companies that own them.
A pale primrose 1960s GT coupé on wire wheels, painted as a 1934 gouache racing poster on a banked concrete curve
Primrose · Monza 1934 · 24 × 36″Enhanced matte, from $190

Hang it large

Enhanced matte, Hahnemühle Photo Rag, or canvas on a deep stretcher bar. We ship to 121 countries from the nearest print house, at a flat postage by size, set from the printer’s own quotes.

12 × 18″from $65Desk, shelf or garage bench
24 × 36″from $190Over a sofa or a workbench
40 × 60″from $440Floor to picture rail, the largest we print

Then it comes home

Paper, canvas, or edge to edge across a hoodie. It’s the same render at print resolution, and we print only the one you chose. Some renders miss: a wheel comes back with a spoke too many, a badge goes soft. That is why looking is free. Every render you kept waits on your wall, so ordering one again is a single click.

Primrose, Salon 1929, framed on a living room wall
Primrose · Salon 1929 · 24 × 36″Enhanced matte, from $190
Seafoam, Riviera 1937, framed on a study wall
Seafoam · Riviera 1937 · 16 × 24″Enhanced matte, from $85
Primrose, Kustom Flake, framed on a hallway wall
Primrose · Kustom Flake · 16 × 24″Enhanced matte, from $85