Porsche 906 Artwork Created Using Bits of Its Past
This impressive 906 portrait was made from 1,100 unique elements from the car's past.
Incredible Detail
There are many artists in the world who fancy automobiles as their subjects, but few create art as unique as Heidi Mraz. This is because her preferred tool isn't a brush or pen, but rather, hundreds and even thousands of pieces of material related to the portrait she is creating. In this case, that's a 4x6-foot recreation of the Porsche 906 racer owned by Paul Queally, co-founder of the Monticello Motor Club racetrack.
Photos: Heidi Mraz
Starting Point
Mraz began the exhaustive process of recreating one of Porsche's most famous racers by first creating a scale model of the 906 as well as a wind tunnel. She then blew orange pigment all over the car and canvas to capture the 906's shape. The next step was to gather a total of 1,100 artifacts from the car's past, which includes advertisements, spec sheets, and magazine clippings.
Photos: Heidi Mraz
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Cultured Work
Mraz spent a number of hours gathering information about the car, as well as tracking down former drivers, owners, and restorers. The result is one seriously impressive piece of art, one that only gets better the closer you look at it. "When I focus on a car, I want people to be interested - not just car people," Mraz explained to Car & Driver. "Automotive design is art. But I also want them to really look at the car as an important part of the culture and see what it did for humans."
Photos: Heidi Mraz
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Goosebumps
Queally won the right to have his car immortalized by Mraz at auction, at some time after he acquired his Porsche 906 at another auction. Needless to say, when his commissioned work of art was revealed, he was quite pleased with the results. "When we unveiled this at Monticello, I had no idea what to expect," Queally said. "I was so blown away. The first thing my eye caught was a little word inside the painting that said 'goosebumps.' I said, 'Oh my God!' That's what I had at that moment."
Photos: Heidi Mraz
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On Display
Both the car and its accompanying piece of art will be on display at the Monticello Motor Club for some time, at least when Queally isn't wringing it out on the tarmac. "I drive it. I drive it on the track," he said. "In fairness, I can't get in it in my helmet, so I drive it off-hours when I'm the only one there. I have a friend who is one of my members. We drive the car together, and we just laugh."
Photo: Gooding & Co.
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