Décor Department
The Difference between Michaelangelo and Hirst is…..
…. one of taste perhaps but more importantly….. if you paint the Sistine Chapel on the side of your car you will be applauded but if you paint a load of naked men and women you will possibly be arrested!
It is this very point you need to think about when you put brush to metal.
In response to the mass arrests following the 1957 Ford Transit Rally to Azerbaijan we have written a short but extremely pertinent set of thumb rules for how to make the most of your artistic bent.
Blue Theme 1
There are a variety of coloured themes we can think of but most are verbotten. We say this because although they are likely to be extremely hilarious they are also likely to get you banged up in some foreign luxury accommodation with their own soap-on-a-rope and room service run by Dimitri who also likes to be known as Diana.
The first Blue theme is that of the sexual nature.
Please do not put anything on your car – words or plastic protrusions – that might be offensive to anyone who belongs to the WI or subscribes to the Mary Whitehouse Digest.
Comprende?
No?
OK – no tits, manginas or otherwise to adorn your vehicle.
It will offend all the foreigners and will get you a quick return back to the UK from Calais.
If you think your theme might cause some form of schoolboy snigger then that should alert you to the fact that it is likely to be unacceptable to the panel of monks, nuns and rabbis that make up the moral police for the Duckar Home Team. Sorry but we are really anal about it!
Blue Theme 2
Please do not turn up as a police car / police van / gendarmerie anything. Do not dress up as the police – do not put flashing lights on the roof; do not put a police siren on the roof.
Let’s be honest here…the locals will really hate it when they pull off the road as you zoom by.
Let us also be completely honest and say that replica guns, knives, swords, etc are also likely to require a lawyer present during your cavity search. Once you have been intimate with an angry local gendarme you are never quite the same.
For some reason the locals do lose their sense of humour when faced with a police impersonator. We will of course confiscate anything within this theme save you the embarrassment of a collapsed sphincter.
Camo Themes
Whatever goes for the police issue is likely to go for any kind of military style theme. Just don’t scare the locals into trying to hide their WMIs.
There is more leeway here – just use a little greycell (common sense). Of course camo your car but don’t attach a turret gun.
Certainly add your national flag in small sticker size to the side but don’t emblazon the car with the flag of the last invaders to rape and pillage the country we are currently travelling through.
A safe rule of thumb is to ask your plumber or local magistrate – both of whom are likely to be from a country close to where you are travelling to – as to whether your reconstruction of a Bell Huey Cobra would be out of place driving through a small village in Galicia or Bradford.
Street Themes
If you are Banksy be our guest but if you are the bloke who wrote “M Khan is bent” on the bridge along the North Circular at Edmonton – no thanks.
If you want to spray paint a message on the car try to be a little sensitive.
Again we will have the final say but just use some common sense – PLEASE!
Protruding Attachments
In the UK we have width restrictions specifically to stop people from putting wings on a car and we have height restrictions to stop people putting a mast and sails on a car.
These people will usually find that the items will disappear quicker than a Mars Bar Duo from Mr Creosote’s locker.
Just don’t waste all that time making something that will just not survive the journey.
Notwithstanding the simple issues of superglue at 70mph the local gendarmes are unlikely to see the funny side so don’t do it.
The simple rule of thumb is to just be sensible and of course creative.
There are so many different ways to make your car sensational – don’t blow it by being a clever dickey!
