This self-published book is a documentation of Chris Burden’s 1975 attempt to design and construct a one passenger vehicle capable of traveling 100 miles per hour and achieving 100 miles per gallon fuel efficiency. Exhibited in 1977, the final B-Car (Bicycle Car) was capable of traveling 50 miles per hour with a fuel consumption of approximately 150 miles per gallon.
“During the two month period between August 24 and October 16, 1975, I conceived, designed, and constructed a small one passenger automobile. My goal was to design a fully operational four-wheel vehicle which would travel 100 miles per hour and achieve 100 miles per gallon. I imagined this vehicle as extremely lightweight, streamlined, and similar in structure to both a bicycle and an airplane. Once the project was conceived, I was compelled to realize it. I set the goal of completing the car for two shows in Europe. I saw building the car as a means toward the end of driving it between galleries in Amsterdam and Paris as a performance. When I arrived in Amsterdam, I knew that the accomplishment of constructing the car had become for me the essential experience. I had already realized the most elaborate fantasy of my life. Driving the car as a performance was not important after the ordeal of bringing it into existence. The car is not completely engineered; most of the parts are hand-made, and many of the decisions in design and construction were based on hunches. As I worked, I kept all the sketches and drawings as a record of the process. Displayed with the car, they became documentation of the construction. The car and drawings represent a vision—my fantasy as an artist of what a car should be.” - Chris Burden
From the library of art critic and writer Edit DeAk.
