Drivers traveling on Interstate 40 near Amarillo, Texas – the old Route 66 – are often amazed by the 10 Cadillacs poking their tails out of the desert. San Francisco-based architectural collective Ant Farm created this 50-year-old installation, which is considered the Stonehenge of American car culture. Cadillac Ranch is a world-famous selfie stop that attracts 1.4 million visitors annually.
Ant Farm spent much of her ten-year career criticizing the mass media, which Cadillac Ranch is now involved in. The work has fueled restaurant spin-offs, copycats and merchandise – which Ant Farm benefits from as they own the copyright. An ode to Cadillac Ranch even appeared in Cars (2006). Founders Chip Lord and Doug Michels, who are deeply rooted in the radical politics of the 1960s, told the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians“We wanted to be a group of architects that was more like a rock band.”
MoMA owns footage of Ant Farm arson stunt Media burn (1975–2003) and their time capsules were exhibited at Pioneer Works in 2016. Cadillac Ranchbut simply honors the rise and fall of the short-lived but iconic Cadillac tail fin. New Orleans-born artist Hudson Marquez joined Ant Farm shortly after its founding. “We were car-crazy,” he said Highways in Texas. “I was always drawing cars, making collages of cars and making art with cars. I had the idea of making seed packets where you could plant seeds that would grow into cars.”
The collective landed in Amarillo after House of the Century (1972) in Angleton, Texas. According to legend, they had acquired a list of American millionaires who might be interested in financing their crazy ideas. There, Ant Farm contacted the eccentric millionaire Stanley Marsh III from Amarillo, who asked them to submit a proposal for Cadillac RanchTheir plan was a simple budget for the excavator and cars. After some consideration, Marsh offered money and a wheat field to house the construction site.
Visitors spray paint the Cadillac Ranch (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Ant Farm spent six weeks at Toad Hall, Marsh’s estate. They took out ads in local newspapers looking for used Cadillacs and spent their days looking for models of all ten Cadillacs with tailfins, from the 1963 Sedan de Ville to the 1949 Club Sedan – which proved to be their biggest challenge. According to Wyatt McSpadden, who worked at Toad Hall, “They finally found one on the east side of town, over on the poor side of town, and a guy had restored it and was asking them for a lot more money than they wanted.” When they got the title, Michels smashed the front of the car to annoy him. It didn’t matter. That part went in the ground.
The installation took less than a week and was timed to coincide with the summer solstice. The slight tilt of the chariots, which mimics the pyramids of Giza, was apparently a happy coincidence. Ant Farm has arranged the chariots in a chronological row, facing west.
After a few years, Texans started shooting them. “It’s the Panhandle,” McSpadden noted. “You have to shoot holes and stuff.” Then the graffiti started. Sometimes the cars were polished all gray, pink or gray, but eventually the cleanup crews gave up. 1997 Cadillac Ranchˆtwo miles west to accommodate Amarillo’s expansion. The Internet soon sparked a rush of tourists and graffiti increased. Four years ago, Stanley Marsh IV set up a truck on the site selling spray paint.
Today the tail fins are all destroyed and there is heated debate about whether Cadillac Ranch should be restored at some point. Although travelers would certainly miss the spectacle if it collapsed into the ground, Lord believes it’s all part of the art.
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