Rocket Bob’s Art Cars

If the International Car Forest of the Last Church’s open air gallery didn’t give enough of a Burning Man charge, head for downtown Goldfield to get up close and personal with permanent art cars that have graced Goldfield’s historic main drag for decades. Here, bask in the weirdest, wildest west with Rocket Bob’s Art Cars—creator of the original art car park, who made these auto-inspired installations long before the Car Forest was a glimmer in its creator’s eye, and even ahead of the famous art car parades that cruise the Playa every August.  

Regular attendees of this legendary Black Rock Desert event already have the lowdown on the souped-up psychedelic art cars—aka “mutant vehicles”—tons of hours of engineering and design goes into these beauties, transforming these flame throwing, neon-ified creations, living up to their very name in every sense of the word. But Rocket Bob’s style of art cars, despite weathering some high desert elements for years, are practically hidden in plain sight right in the heart of the “World’s Greatest Gold Camp” a perfect Weird Nevada twist on an open air car museum. 

A long time Burner, Rocket Bob’s installation has blurred lines of what’s real and what’s imaginary—both of which are alive and well in Goldfield. Discover a handful of old cars adorned with all kinds of trinkets—think air horns, Barbie dolls, milk bottles, cowboy hats, and beyond. Even some of these art cars have old VW Bug frames and boats mounted on top of them, leaving road trippers scratching their heads, saying “what the hell was that?”, commanding them to pull over the car and check it out. When road trippin’ the Free-Range Art Highway, be sure to make a pit stop in Goldfield to drink in some true Weird Nevada vibes while learning a thing or two about one of the richest gold strikes that ever took place in the Silver State.