Worlds Smallest Car For Sale
The current Guinness World Record holder for smallest car, Austin Coulson, is set to auction his car at Barrett Jackson next week. “Lil Texas” is scheduled to cross the auction block on Tuesday, January 14th. One of the things you’ll notice about Austin’s car (besides the tiny size) is that the body has some very interesting graphics on it. The design looks like paint, but it’s actually a vehicle wrap.
2 years ago Austin attended the Barrett Jackson auction in Scottsdale and while he was there he came across a go cart with a GT40 body on it. This got him to thinking about how someone would register a car like that with the DMV. Austin then researched the Guinness World records for the dimensions of the then world record holder and set about building an even smaller car.
Austin first came to SmartWrap in the spring of 2012 with his idea for wrapping the world’s smallest car. We’ve had a lot of different inquiries over the years at SmartWrap. 99% of our focus is on full size vehicles for commercial purposes or for customization. But Austin’s idea was just too interesting to pass up.
Austin had a specific creative vision in mind – he wanted to pay homage to his grandfather who fought in WWII flying in the Pacific theater. He wanted the vehicle wrap to look like an old bomber. In the wrap design you can see many of the elements you’d find on a WWII aircraft. There’s a bomber girl, the teeth on the front, the aircraft number. Even the rivets and metal sheeting.
In order to design this wrap SmartWrap had to first build a custom template on which to overlay the graphic elements. Again, 99% of what we do involves designs for use on readily available production vehicles ( we use photographic templates from TheBadWrap.com) After the template was made, work on the graphic elements began. After Austin approved the design, SmartWrap installed the different vinyl pieces onto the body of the car. At this point construction on the mechanics of the car were still being worked on, so we were able to work on the body graphics in the in term.
After Lil Texas was built and officially road certified in the state of Texas, Austin sent of the information to the Guinness Book of World Records. Finally he was notified that he had in fact won! But he had to maintain strict non disclosure until the new records were officially released last fall. After the release he quickly became an overnight media sensation! He was even featured on Good Morning America in Times Square!
See more pictures of this project on our Facebook Page
For more information on Austin Coulson’s other projects visit his website HERE
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