Car Enthusiast Office Decor

The Splitty

Original Art by Janey Saavedra

What’s your workspace look like? Here’s what I see every day. It’s a 42- by 42-inch oil painting of a VW Split Window.

My wife Janey Saavedra painted it. Her inspiration was the VW Treffen event we attended in Oregon.

Treffen is the traveling VW event that motors from the Canadian border south to Mexico. If you want to see hundreds of vintage Volkswagens that’s the event to attend.

She picked the most weathered daily driver from the event to paint, and I really admire her ability to capture it in all its glory, flaws, and all.

I have loosely collected automotive artwork for years and once traded two signed and numbered works of art by a noted Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance artist as payment for a paint job on a 1965 Chevy El Camino.

As far-fetched as it seems today, the story is 100 percent accurate of what happened. The owner of the autobody shop loved the artwork I had shown him and made the trade. They were limited Corvette-themed works from a famed Pebble Beach artist.

With no wall to hang the art on, the decision to part with these two works made complete sense. Shoving them in the attic with last year’s Halloween decorations wasn’t the solution.

There’s no reason to keep automotive art unless you can enjoy it. In my opinion.

Good automotive artwork has value. But not necessarily always the money kind of value, but sentimental value. That’s how I collect. It has to be meaningful.

Either it’s a one-of-a-kind painting of a vehicle that I’ve dreamed of owning, or the art depicts some racing event that made automotive history. It has to relate to my interests.

It’s been said many times that… “painting is the medium through which art and the world's greatest endurance race have been brought together.” The 24 Hours of Le Mans comes to mind because more artwork has been produced depicting that event than any other that I can think of, and the presence of art at the 24 Hours goes back 100 years or more.

The same applies to events like the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, which I mentioned before. Each year organizers select a celebrated artist to create the official poster for the event. This has been going on for decades. I have one of those posters tucked away somewhere.

Because most of my friends are motoring enthusiasts too, I see a lot of automotive art. Art is personal. They collect things I would not. Vice-versa. I don’t think much about printed art. The type that is churned out by machine. I’m not an art snob, either. But I would rather own a one-off work of art like the artist’s proof. Wishful thinking right?

Somewhere in the attic is a lost collection of art posters and numbered prints, all waiting for the day when I bundle them up and list them on eBay.

There are some interesting pieces there. The first official poster for the original Fast and Furious movie comes to mind. It was signed by the late actor Paul Walker, and given to me by his publicity agent in Hollywood months before the original movie was in theaters. I kept it all these years. It’s not fine art. But depicts a moment in automotive history. For that reason I’ll hang onto it for a while.

Good automotive art stimulates my creative senses, cures my writer’s block, and puts a smile on my face. That’s why I love the splitty painting hanging on my office wall, exactly where it belongs.