Classic Car Goes Green – Covered in Grass

Classic Cars can be Green!

A few years ago, while browsing through a copy of Volksworld, I saw an unusual vehicle in the news section. It was a grass covered classic car. Having insured a number of classic cars, I'd never seen anything like this before, and you might think this is just a one-off quirky attention grabber for the summer veedub shows.

Well it's not as unique as you might think. A quick bit of research will find you a surprising number of grass covered motor vehicles, sometimes rare classics. But let's look at the er, Turf Bug first of all..

The Turf Bug is the creation of Dream Turf owner, Rick Griffiths using a less than fashionable 1974 Super VW Beetle. I guess this is one way to make the Super Beetle cool. It's not real grass of course, that'd be ridiculous wouldn't it, this bug is covered in Tri-Color synthetic grass. From a distance it reminds me of those fuzzy felt kind of Christmas scenes you can buy, you know the sort, where you just add water to “grow” your snowy scene.

The process of turfing this old car took 120 hours and 900 screws along with a lot of outdoor adhesive. Rick wisely advises people to not take photos of the car whilst driving for safety reasons, he says if you email Dream Turf, he will be more than happy to send you a picture of this oddest of odd VW Beetles!

Well that's an odd anomaly in the world of automobiles you may think, but there's more. Innocent Smoothies have a grass covered van called the Dancing Grass Van (DGV). In fact, they have two of these vehicles. Delve a little deeper, and Innocent will also tell you that they have a few TGVs as well – that's Tiny Grass Vans. Delve even deeper and you will find that another smoothie company, Moozoo in Montreal, Quebec, also have a grass covered vehicle. Though who sowed their seed first isn't clear.

The guy in the picture in a grass suit has gone one further – he's gone for the ridiculous, as his car is actually covered in realgrass which has to be watered every day. He is an artist by the name of Gene Pool, and he hasn't stopped at just a real grass car and a suit. Among his many other grass cars, Gene also once created a vintage grass bus which was watered daily by car artist Lucy Harvey - who also watered his suit. I guess this is the only vehicle where you might consider replacing your windscreen wipers with shears for a long journey in the rain.

I would imagine for a Beetle, the less than smooth surface of a non-smooth Rat-Look might be a good place to start if you've got your classic car insurance at the ready and feel inspired. There are plus points as well of course. No longer would you have to worry about your precious vintage auto getting scratched in the local supermarket car-park, and if someone does knock the door (would this be a skid-mark?) you can comfort yourself with the knowledge that the grass is always greener on the other side. Besides, the damage will always grow back anyway. Though the downside is that negotiating junctions in the leafy countryside might be a bit hairy for you and rather a surprise for other motorists.

You see, going green doesn't have to be predictable with boring old bio-fuels or giant batteries in your boot. This summer, why not join this unique band of people that have grass vehicles with a creation of your own?