Kurt Harland (lead singer of pioneering
synthpop/
cyberpunk band
Information Society) was the creator and original owner of a very well-known
Car, featured in
InSoc music videos and on the cover of their second album,
Hack. He gave a number of details on the nature and eventual fate of the Car on the band's website,
www.insoc.org. This information is summarized here.
The Car started its life as a 1973 Plymouth Satellite Sebring. It was purchased some time in 1988 - near the zenith of InSoc's popularity -- and was heavily modified in the fashion of a post-apocalyptic, Mad Max-style vehicle. The creation of art-cars is a popular past-time of visitors to the Burning Man arts festival in Nevada, which Harland has occasionally attended. His particular style of modification is itself popular among persons of a rivethead or industrial bent. Harland himself says little of his reasons for creating the Car, other than to say it was "something he felt he had to do."
- Original engine was a 318 V-8, replaced by a 440 V-8 taken from a 1977 Gran Fury III police cruiser. Engine rebuilt in 1990.
- 4-barrel carburator
- Racing transission
- 3/4 racing cam.
- Oversized tires and wheels
- All trim, interior padding and back seat removed; front seat repadded in black leather
The car's exterior was modified heavily in 1989 and 1990 by Linus Corragio, a New York welding sculptor, from a notebook of drawings by Kurt Harland. The exterior was covered with steel mesh and adorned with steel tubing and rebar. Eighteen extra lights were added, including a red light in each wheel well, two yellow lights (what we would now call "ground effect" lights) pointing down and forward from tbe back bumper, three white lights pointing down at the trunk from the roof, two additional headlights, five lights on the forward roof rack, and one on each side of the front roof rack. Two plaster skulls were added to the front bumper, and, a faux battering ram constructed of steel bars taken from NYC "no parking" signs was built on the front of the vehicle. Finally, a working laser was mounted on the roof, pointing forward.
A deer pelvis, painted black, was attatched to the roof in 1996.
The Car was eventually sold to Harland's friend David King, and was last known to be sitting in storage in Oakland, CA. Harland stated that he still had access to it and that King was planning to make further modifications.
Its present disposition as of January 2006 is unknown.