The Art of the Automobile
Fine art, precision scale models, vintage racing posters — and the stories behind them.
Welcome
We Swim in the Car Culture
Automotive-Art began life in 2002 as an automotive art gallery, created to serve the fascinations, curiosity and drive of car and motorcycle enthusiasts. “It’s a beauty,” we say when we see a car or bike we love. It’s art we relate to — and for two decades these pages have been devoted to exactly that feeling.
Today Automotive-Art is preserved as an evergreen guide to the world where automobiles and art collide: the painters who put coachbuilt classics on canvas, the craftsmen who shrink racing legends to 1:43 scale, the lithographers whose Grand Prix posters defined an entire graphic era, and the wonderfully obsessive culture of the people who collect all of it. There is nothing for sale here — just the knowledge, enthusiasm and good humor we have accumulated along the way.
If you are new, start with our collection guides below, browse the Braking News journal, or read the collector’s guide to commissioning original automotive artwork. If you simply want to look at beautiful machines, institutions like the Petersen Automotive Museum keep the full-size versions polished and waiting.
The Collections
Three Ways to Hang Horsepower on a Wall
Art Prints & Originals
Lithographs and giclée prints from today’s automotive fine artists — classic cars, racing moments, sports and super cars, staged with real drama.
Explore the art collection →
Scale & Diecast Models
Precision collectible scale models: hand-built 1:43 coachbuilt classics, 1:18 racing legends, and the craft that separates jewelry from toys.
Explore the model collection →
Vintage Racing Posters
Replicas of a golden age: Grand Prix poster art from the 1920s and 30s, when speed met art deco and produced graphic perfection.
Explore the poster collection →Our old catalog also wandered happily into nostalgic garage signs, mechanical wall clocks and den decor — the supporting cast of any proper car space. The same collecting principles in our guides apply: buy what makes you grin every time you walk past it.
Braking News
Stories That Stop Us in Our Tracks
The Automotive-Art journal has always covered the corners of car culture other outlets skip: concours art debuts, tether cars, miniature photography, and the occasional maniac roadster. A few favorites:
From Gallery to Archive
What This Place Is Now
For years, Automotive-Art operated as a working gallery: discovering artists, sourcing hand-built models from small European ateliers, and chasing down a printer worthy of the great Grand Prix posters (a two-year saga our journal documented with appropriate melodrama). The storefront era has closed, but the knowledge it produced is too useful to let rust.
So these pages now serve as a permanent reference for the field: how lithographs differ from giclées, what separates a precision 1:43 model from a toy, why 1930s poster artists still own the visual language of speed, and how to commission a painting of your own car without regret. Collectors, restorers, artists and the simply curious are all equally welcome — admission has always been free, and the lights stay on.