386: Heidi Mraz at Waterworks - When Car Culture Becomes Fine Art
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On this episode of the Collector Car Podcast, 1,000 butterflies in 917s, wrecked Bugattis being
raised from European lakes, missing Aston Martin DB5s and $150 million Bugatti Atlantics, and
giant keychains, all this and more, on the Collector Car Podcast.
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All right, Heidi, we are in an incredible exhibit that you have put together and
why don't you tell my listeners where we are and how they can possibly see this?
So we are at Waterworks Visual Art Center which is in Salisbury, North Carolina and the show,
the overall arching theme of the show is the spark that drives us and it includes five
world-renowned artists in various mediums.
We have Stephanie Hansen who is an abstract painter and he is a Lamar driver and we
have Michael Furman who is an accomplished photographer, probably know him and seen much
of his work, he's written some books, he's got his pieces called Bad Ass, sometimes he
likes to say Badass, but and then we have Dan McCrary who is a local watercolor artist
and his pieces are exceptional, they are so detailed, you could look at a droplet
of water and see these interesting reflections on them and then we have Richard Petruska
and he is an incredible, incredible sculptural artist and you see his forms, we'll walk
by them if you want.
Yeah, let's check them out and then obviously we have you as well.
Oh, we have me, we'll take a look at some of these and then we'll look at your
studio for your gallery.
Yeah, take a look at the gorgeous finishes on these and the form.
You get a sense of motion just by looking at them.
I noticed the Jaguar XK120 or so and obviously a Ferrari Formula One car here.
And then I would assume that's a Mercedes right there, right?
Okay, well yeah, these are just absolutely stunning.
I see another Ferrari over here, a lot of Ferraris, that's great.
Well, why don't you show us your gallery and tell us a little bit about these
pieces of artwork you have in here.
So my exhibition is called Driven by Narrative and cars are certainly my
muse, but it's the stories that they carry that really kind of get me
excited.
And when you look into this gallery, you say, well, there's so many
different mediums in here and that's because once I sort of do the research
and document documentation of the car, I really kind of lean in to find
something that's that's a novel approach and then I use that, allow
that to tell me what mediums to use.
Well, a little sneak peek as we get the medium of butterflies
behind you, but we'll get we'll get to that in a second.
So why don't you tell us about this first piece is
called Rise to the Challenge.
And I had an opportunity to follow a gentleman driver around for Ferrari
Challenge for two years as he started.
And then he actually went through the ranks and the classes and moved up
in one North America, Trofeo Pirelli AM.
And included in here are his crashes and podium wins.
And, you know, I got to really take a close look at what it was like
to be a driver.
His crew team, his coaching, how he prepared for races.
And I hide things in each of these pieces, sort of in plain sight.
I see a sheep in there.
What's with the sheep?
So that's a very good question.
So sheep, the woolly-weeders, they use them at Sonoma
racetrack to keep the the course area around the course manicured.
So I had to put one of those in there.
But I mean, if you look at this, I'm going to point it out.
There are car crashes.
This really is representative of the shadow that the mirror casts.
But it's a crash.
And then I've got, you know, there were so many photographs.
Here actually is my client kissing the bricks because he had wanted
Indiana.
Really exciting.
Yeah, I mean, there's just so many details here.
And then didn't you also say that some of this is actually
pictures of the different racetracks?
Yes, different racetracks.
And so if you've been in those worlds, you can actually identify,
oh, I know where that's from, because the bumpers are that color.
Or you see grandstands or seats.
There's all these little identifiers that you can literally pick out.
Now, what's interesting is a lot of your subjects in here
are rather famous for one reason or another.
Now, this next one is famous for what it is,
but also for what it is not.
That's right.
So this is called the Puzzling Case in the Missing Bond Car.
And why Puzzle?
Well, because this is arguably one of the most famous cars
in the world, James Bond.
It was the first one.
And I'm going to point this out for the car enthusiast.
So the difference is this was actually
the prototype for the DB5.
If you look at it, it has this, which is a turn signal.
But they're not on the cars that are made.
So you put it on there because it was a prototype?
This is the prototype.
It was the car.
Yep, this was the car.
And what happened to it was, it was in the movies,
and they didn't think it was going to be worth much money.
And they sold it, sold a couple of times.
And the last owner bought it for $200,000.
And they ended up kind of campaigning it around
and showing it off.
And slowly but surely, they raised
the value of the insurance money.
And once it reached 4.2, it mysteriously
disappeared out of an airplane hangar in Florida.
We're not really sure what happened to it.
It's still a mystery.
If you go online and you Google it,
it's going to say something about it being found
in the Middle East, but it hasn't been found.
It could be in a waterway in Florida.
It could be in somebody's collection in Russia.
We're not really sure.
So it is, it's.
It might be out there.
We'll see.
It might be out there.
Now, this next painting, I saw on the cover of,
or one like it, on the cover of PCA.
And I love the way you put this thing together.
So tell us about this.
And then we'll take a step back.
It'll be great.
So this is the colors of Portia.
And Portia has been around for 70-some years.
And if you think about their cards,
you always can see them in these fabulous colors.
And they have so many choices.
And they actually have where you
could pick your own color.
So you can paint a sample if you want.
So these represent the different colors.
Tangerine, acid green.
There are Ruby Star.
And you can see these little 9-11s.
It's designed in a way.
Oh, and it's on a Portia 9-11 hood.
This is from a 1994 9-11 that was stolen.
And I ended up with it purchasing it.
So if you step back, what happens
is your eyes start to do what's called visual mixing.
And it turns into the Portia logo of three colors.
So you just see the red, black, and gold.
Now, how did you do that?
Or can you not share your trade secrets?
I have really bad eyesight, so I actually
have been seeing like that my whole life.
But yeah, there's this thing in our DNA
where in our brains, we are trying to always figure
out what something is.
It's a fight or flight.
And so we can say, OK, that is not dangerous.
And so the further we step away, our eyes visually mix it
and immediately say, if you've ever seen a Portia crest before,
that's a Portia crest.
But up close, your eyes don't allow you to see the hole.
And that's how all of my pieces work, my collage pieces.
From a distance, they're relatively tight images
of cars.
But then you step closer and you're like, whoa,
there is a chaos of information in here.
They said fight or flight.
So would that be the reds and yellows?
Our brain is meant to see, whereas they
see that as danger and the greens and the blues
and the pinks go further back?
No, but that's very good.
Color does mean something.
So speed and fire and intensity.
But what I'm saying is it shapes.
So the further you step away, you begin to see the shape.
And then your brain tells you, oh, that
must be Portia, so you mix it.
And your brain tells you that that's the Portia crest.
And again, the same with my cars.
The further you step away, the tighter it gets.
Right, right.
Well, let's talk about another missing car, the one
right behind you, which I've been
doing a lot of research on lately.
So tell us about it, and we'll see what happens here.
Well, this is the Bugatti Atlantic 57 SC.
And back when the Germans were invading France,
they had the werethal to put it on a train.
And they were sending it to Bordeaux.
And unfortunately, it was never seen from again.
And so this is called vanished.
And it's lenticular.
I had to paint two different paintings, one with the car
and one without.
And as you move by it, it literally disappears.
Oh, there it goes.
That's awesome.
Arguably, again, if this is found,
it would be considered probably the most valuable car
in the world.
It'd be my guess upwards of $150 million.
Yeah, that's what I've heard as well.
I won't be buying it.
OK, now, this is another Bugatti, right?
This is based on the famous Bugatti of the Lake.
I was going to say Lady of the Lake, but that's not right.
Well, no, Lady of the Lake.
That's what Peter Mullen.
Oh, that's what he called it.
So this is such an interesting story.
It's a big part of the way I do my art today.
So Peter Mullen had purchased the Bugatti of the Lake
for his museum that he was opening up.
And there wasn't much research done on it.
And 50% of the time that I spent on a vehicle
is uncovering documentation and researching a vehicle.
And so for this one, the story is
that it's a Type 22, 1925 Bugatti Brescia that
was supposedly owned by Renee Dreyfus, who
was a famous race car driver in France.
And 10 years later, he lost it in a drunken poker game
to a playboy who lived in Switzerland.
And he took the car to Switzerland at the time.
When you had a car, you had to pay a duty on it.
And he had no money, couldn't pay the duty.
And so the tax guys decided that they
were going to dispose of it in a lake.
But one of the guys thought, well, if this was Renee Dreyfus's
car, it might be worth saving.
So he put it on a chain so that he could pull it back out
after they were gone.
But the chain rusted and broke,
and it rolled 175 feet down to the bottom, flipped on its side.
And there's like a silt or muck down there,
which there was no air in it.
So it literally preserved that whole one side of the car.
And the other side was like a skeleton.
You can see it in this area would be where you can see how a car was
made back then with the wood.
So how deep was it when it came to our rest?
Do you know what I'm saying?
About 170 some feet.
OK.
Yeah, pretty deep.
And then fast forward, and it was just legend that was down there,
you fast forward to the late 60s.
And one of the dive masters at Lake Bajori
wanted to go down and prove that it was there.
He made it his mission, actually, to find it.
And he did.
He found it in 1968.
And then people came from all around the world
to dive to see this Sankan Bhagati.
It truly was a treasure.
And fast forward to 2009.
And this young man.
I'll see the picture out there.
Yeah, there it is.
So a young man was killed on the banks of Ascona.
And his father was the dive master.
And they decided they were going to raise the car
and create a foundation in his name.
But it wasn't a real easy task, because they
had to build a platform to float it out there.
It took a year, 30 divers.
They wanted to make sure that it was something important,
because the chassis plate had been taken off the car.
So they really didn't know.
Could it just be a junker that somebody rolled in there?
So they went to a Hans Madi, who
was a Bogadius, and had the same type of car.
And he showed those divers where the markings were,
so they could unequivocally find out what this vehicle was.
They did.
And they said, oh my goodness, this is an important car.
We need to raise it.
So they did raise it.
And it became this sensation on the banks.
There were thousands of people that lined it.
When they pulled the car out of the water,
and this is a representation of the car
being lifted out of the water, there was still air in the tires.
And you could still see some French blue on the car.
That's insane after 70, 70 years, right?
What I did, which is, and when
I say that this piece moved me so much,
that this young boy who died and the reason they raised it,
and then, of course, Peter and Merle Mullen,
they wanted to pay homage to this.
And I thought, how do I do that?
So I took a canvas, painted out of water-soluble inks,
and took it to the very spot where the car had laid
for many years underwater.
And the father of the boy who died took the canvas
underwater, and he moved it back and forth
and allowed the lake water to wash away some of that ink,
just as it did wash away a part of the car.
So this is a representation of that.
And here it is if you look here.
Oh, yeah, I was wondering what that was, OK.
And then if you look here, this is actually
it being pulled out.
So then you look back and you say, OK.
I love the tax collector, tax man.
You got Peter Mullen up there with this.
Oh, I have the drunken poker game and Peter and Merle.
This is where it was sold at Retromobile.
My wife and I were fortunate to be the very last two public people
into the Mullen's Museum.
Oh, you're so lucky.
Like Bruce Meyer got us in.
And I thought we had like three hours.
And I'm starting to film.
And all of a sudden, they start flipping lights on and off,
saying it's time to leave.
We've got to get ready for an auction tomorrow.
Oh my, that's right.
Yeah.
OK, so do we have another Bugatti?
Yes, we do.
So this is my Bugatti trilogy ball.
So this is another Bugatti that during the war,
when the Germans were invading, they took this to also Bordeaux
and they buried it.
And this is called Unearthed.
And it represents the moment that they brought it
into the light again.
And you can see this car at the Simeon Museum.
Is this a Bugatti tank?
Tank.
OK.
I did not realize that the tank car was buried at one point.
Yeah.
Now, is that the actual shovel they used?
No, that's a representation of the shovel.
But I will say, I took a canvas and buried that in Bordeaux,
France.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
OK.
So it was imbued with ingrained, should I say.
Oh, ingrained.
Yeah, ingrained with the clay soil.
Wow, that's awesome.
And now we're on to the 917.
The 917.
And so this is my aerodynamics by entomology wall
and installation.
And it tells the story of the Porsche 917.
And it's not a story that a lot of people know,
but basically when Porsche created this car
and it's a purpose-built car to race at Le Mans,
they never won at the 24 hours of Le Mans.
And they created this beast.
It could go 200 some miles an hour.
But it was unruly.
And it had a tendency to lift on the straights.
And it was so tough and unstable that the works drivers
didn't want to drive it.
It just so happens that a private-seer bought one.
And in 1969, on his very first lap, it crashed and died.
And so they knew they had to do something.
And they took it to a track in Austria, Austria-Gregg.
And there, John Weier's team, the engineering
that the Porsche had hired, John Horisman
was the chief engineer.
He noticed as the track, as the car came in from going
around the track a few times, that there were dead insects
everywhere on the car but the rear wing.
Now, they didn't think it was an aerodynamic problem.
They thought, because they used a wind tunnel to design it.
But that was very early in wind tunnel design.
And so they thought maybe it was a chassis flex problem
and not an aerodynamic problem.
But he knew immediately when he saw these dead insects
all over the car but the rear wing that had to be
aerodynamic problem, there was no down force.
No dead insects meant that there was no airflow there.
And so he took out some snips and sheets of aluminum
and duct tape and refashioned the back end.
And the next morning the car went out.
This is insane.
It was five seconds faster, which is equivalent
to 50 horsepower.
Wow.
Insane, it broke a record at the track.
And of course, as we now know,
Porsche went on to win their first outright win
at Le Mans in this car in 70.
And then in 1971, they won again.
They changed, the F8 regulations changed
but insanely enough, one of the records
that the 917 broke lasted till 2010.
The butterflies are the stand in,
obviously for the insects.
And I think they're just absolutely gorgeous.
Livery on cars is so important
because you can identify what team they are
and the colors are so interesting.
So this is from the movie Le Mans.
This is the Gulf livery.
Steve McQueen's car that is now owned
by a famous comedian.
Who just put it up for sale at Mecom
and it did not sell.
I don't know.
Yeah, I did see that.
So Jerry...
They're much smaller than you think they would be.
They're very low to the ground
as most race cars are.
So you see these other,
I call these my specimens
and these are Porsche 917s
that I've accumulated or collected, should I say.
One of the big collections was
when Pebble Beach Concord at Le Mans
had 13 917s.
But from Portion Museum in Germany
through to different auctions,
I've been able to take a lot of photographs of 917s
and they're quite rare.
So it's very interesting.
Now I hide myself in a lot of my pieces.
So I always challenge people to find out.
And at the tail, by the way,
at the tail end of this, the tail wing,
wind, you see there's a little bit of a story
and that's from Jay Gelotti's book.
Oh, Jay, yes, he's been on the podcast.
And it tells the story of how John Horisman
figured out what was wrong with the car.
Is he upset that you cut a book up?
No, no, no, I asked him.
Actually, my good friend from Dalton Watson
who published the book sent me a book.
Oh, nice.
Yeah, I love the Gulf Oil.
The actual first logo I ever had for my podcast
was the number 21 Gulf Oil 917,
just because I've always loved that.
Oh, I love it, yeah.
And now, obviously, this is a ton of work
to put all these little butterflies up here.
So that's 1,000 butterflies.
1,000 butterflies right there, yeah.
And then you have the hippie one as well.
Oh, yeah, that's called the other hippie.
This is the other hippie.
So most people don't know it,
but okay, so the Porsche 917
came basically in two iterations.
You had the long tail, which was,
it's a different style,
cards meant just to race at Le Mans.
And then you have the short tail
which is sort of this epiphany
when they came up with the redesign of it.
And butterflies also, if you think about it,
mean transformation and change.
And they have, there's so many things that it symbolizes.
So I think I love that way it plays with history.
Right, right.
And telling the history.
But yeah, so there was a short tail that raced
and it was, it raced in this livery
and it was also in a red and yellow
martini livery as well.
Okay.
And then finally, the big key chains.
So the big key chains, this is my latest series
that's called Key to Success.
And basically when I was in my twenties,
I got a, I shot a Porsche business was
and I got a key chain for it.
And I kept it with me
and I said one day I'm gonna own a Porsche.
And this actually is in 2024, I got a Porsche 911.
This is my key chain.
It was the impetus for this entire collection.
You actually, I met you by your Porsche.
That's right.
I got to show it to you.
That's right.
It is gentian blue, spectacular color.
Awesome.
So blue and a little bit violet as well.
So tell me again, how long does this exhibit run?
This exhibit runs now until February 28th
and there's going to be cars and coffee
on the third Saturday of each month up until December.
The hours I think 10 to five.
And I want everybody to come in and see it.
You know, the idea behind this show
is to take a look at cars through the lens
of artists and see them in a new light.
And I think that it's high time
that car art comes out of the garage and is respected.
And I think this allows us to do that.
And it also makes you think about
looking at cars differently
and seeing the design elements of them
and the beauty of them.
Well, and so the link will be in the description
but we do have a car behind us
that I'm pretty sure is not one of your pieces of artwork.
Oh, so this is the Martin station that I love it.
It's from 1950.
It's on loan from the Lane Motor Museum.
It is a bonkers car.
So it's like a Woody.
It's a three wheeler.
It has a transmission from a Harley Davidson.
What's really interesting about it,
if you take a look inside,
it's got theater style seating which flip up.
And you see there's a notch out of the steering wheel.
That's because you couldn't fit in it
if it was down and it didn't have
a notch out of the steering wheel.
I think it's like 45 horsepower.
The engine is from basically,
it's a Hercules that was meant for generators.
Wow.
Yeah, it's pretty, it's so darn cute.
It has, the rear wheel breaks, the fronts don't.
So it's kind of dangerous.
And it's a bear to drive.
I've been told I haven't driven it but.
Pretty much most of the cars in the Lane Motor Museum
are difficult to drive.
Yeah, so it's really, I say what it lacks in safety
and in drivability it makes up for it.
It's charm.
Yeah, that's awesome.
Well thank you so much for being on The Collector Car Podcast.
You're welcome, it's been my pleasure.
About this episode
Heidi Mraz joins the Collector Car Podcast to discuss her captivating art exhibit at Waterworks Visual Art Center, which explores the intersection of car culture and fine art. Featuring five renowned artists, the exhibit showcases unique pieces inspired by automotive history, including the stories behind missing cars like the Aston Martin DB5 and Bugatti Atlantic. Mraz emphasizes the narrative aspect of her work, using various mediums to convey the emotions and tales associated with iconic vehicles. The conversation highlights the importance of appreciating cars as art and the creativity within the automotive community.
Original notes
This week I step inside Waterworks Visual Arts Center in Salisbury, NC to experience Heidi Mraz's immersive automotive art exhibit. Heidi transforms fragments—vintage brochures, race maps, workshop notes, paint chips—into large-scale portraits that feel alive with motion and memory. We talk process (from research to layering and collage), the stories hidden in each build sheet and body panel, and why car culture belongs on museum walls as much as it does on concours lawns. If you love the smell of old manuals, the poetry of patina, or the way a great road trip rearranges your brain, you'll be right at home in this episode.
Show links:
• Waterworks Visual Arts Center — Salisbury, NC
• Artist: Heidi Mraz
This episode is sponsored by our friends at California Car Cover — my go-to source for custom-fit car covers and detailing gear. They've protected both my '66 GTO and Porsche Boxster S, and I trust them to keep your collector car safe, too.
#HeidiMraz #WaterworksVisualArtsCenter #SalisburyNC #AutomotiveArt #CarCulture #CollageArt #MuseumExhibit #CollectorCars #ArtExhibit #FineArt #CarDesign #CarStories #AutomotiveHistory #ArtAndCars
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