Obtainium Works Art Cars Are Headed to New Owners in Las Vegas

Shannon O’Hare and his fellow steampunk tinkerers at Obtainium Works are bidding fond farewell to six art cars that have been common sights at SF Bay Area events such as Maker Faire, the Obtainium Cup Contraptor’s Rally, and the Mad Hatter Holiday Parade.

This weekend, the crew plans to load the vehicles into a convoy of trucks and trailers and transport them to new owners in Las Vegas.

“We have a great opportunity here at Obtainium Works to gain the most valuable thing that we need – space,” O’Hare explained in a new video from the studio’s facility in Vallejo.

The vehicles include refurbished versions of the Flying Saucer, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Venetian Gondola, Flying Broomstick, and Mad Hatter Sofa, plus the Hookah-Smoking Caterpillar inspired by Alice in Wonderland.

Most are going to Joshua Levine of Fired Up Management, who plans to use them at events in Southern Nevada.

Levine has served as an art agent for the studio, arranging a deal that placed the Neverwas Haul at Lyft Art Park in downtown Las Vegas in 2018. The Haul, a three-story Victorian house on wheels, is the studio’s best-known project.

Most of the vehicles received tune-ups of varying degrees. The gondola, O’Hare said, is now faster and will have new lighting. And the Mad Hatter Sofa is newly motorized.

“Originally it was motorized, but it was also considered suicidal to drive it,” O’Hare explained. “It had a tendency to think on its own.”

Obtainium Works is already making plans for its next project, an art car replica of the USS Saginaw, built in 1859 at the Mare Island Navy Yard in Vallejo. It was the first ship built at the facility, which was the first U.S. Navy base on the Pacific Coast. The studio is building the car on behalf of the Vallejo Naval & Historical Museum.

See the gallery below for a final look at the vehicles. Learn more on the Obtainium Works website and Facebook page.