SUNDAY DRIVE

AS TOLD TO Joshua Brosnahan PHOTO Federico Corradi I had been looking for a car for a while, as the first car I got was impracticable and massive. When my father showed me the listing for this one, I knew it was perfect for me. She was fully white when I first got her. I knew I wanted to personalise her, but it wasn’t until around six months later I started painting her in a homage to the Volkswagen Harlequin. I hand-painted every single panel myself using spray paint. Four days and 200 dollars later, she was done. I love that she brought my friends and me together, as they knew what I was planning and wanted to help with the process, so it became a project among us.

My car draws a lot of attention, and I get a lot of unsurprising reactions: kids gawking, drunk teenagers yelling, and old men laughing, but I think the most memorable instance was when a Charlie’s Party Bus full of ladies stopped to ask to take photos in my car. I thought this was funny, so I let them. In the most simple terms, my car is quite literally just a car; it is just painted in a way that is different to what people see every day on the road. This small thing, a tiny break from the social norm, is enough to make people smile and laugh, enough to stop an entire party bus so they can have a photo op, and I think that’s pretty neat.