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From 1989 to 1997 Andrew Bush took photos of people driving in Southern California.

Caption for above photo: Man driving west at 23 mph down a yet-to-be-named dirt road, around lunchtime, during a construction boom in Las Vegas in June of 1989 Link

  • Mark Frauenfelder
  • daku

    These pictures are great! Thanks for posting; and yes, Svenski: it could very well be Oscar Goldman, I also recognized that face. I’m getting the book on this series as soon as I can!

  • dbarak

    >>Lady in pink Corevtte: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelyne

    You think it’s the same person? Looks like it could be.

  • Kieran O’Neill

    I notice none of these were taken post-2001…

    Also, are those bullet holes on the side of that guys car ? (!)

  • Takuan

    shitty dent puller work

  • Takuan

    good for popping ignition locks too
    http://www.buildingabeetle.com/images/tools26.jpg

  • Maddy

    proof positive that California preserves autos — so many of those autos were vintage and still running at the time of his more current photo essay — I miss my 73 Super Beetle!

    http://img53.imageshack.us/img53/91/carlicarcultureis7.jpg

  • GlenBlank

    Oh, yeah, the pink Corvette is definitely Angelyne. She’s the purest form of celebrity – someone who’s famous for being famous.

    The pink Corvette has vanity plates reading ANGLYNE (because seven letters is the max).

    She’s hard to miss.

  • Enochrewt

    Photo of Angelyne’s Corvette 1
    Photo of Angelyne’s Corvette 2
    Photo of Angelyne
    Angelyne lookin’ rough
    Photo of Angelyne present day I think

    It is her, It’s gotta be. Look at the shape of the nose. These photos are the only ones I can find of here “in the wild” without her nose being covered with sunglasses, her hiding her face (silly hand posing) or a whole bunch of airbrushing going on.

    And I’m focusing on the bridge nose because that’s what bouncers/ID people do to match IDs to faces. Not because I can spot specific plastic surgery jobs ;)

  • Svenski

    The man in the Porsche is a dead-ringer for Hunter Thompson. A couple of pictures later is definitely Oscar Goldman of The Six Million Dollar Man.

  • subterrene

    @svenski: I thought I recognized Oscar Goldman (“possibly in character”) but I couldn’t remember his name. He’s a ringer, thats for sure.

    I just love the captions, and I’m wondering if they aren’t some kind of a spoof: “Person driving somewhere in the last decade of the previous millennium (whereabouts unknown)” or the one that says it could possibly be “Phoenix or St. Louis”, that’s a pretty big margin of error.

    Also, some people obviously enjoyed having their picture taken – the guy w/speakers in the convertible, the girl with her eyes closed blowing a kiss.

  • MT_Head

    Not to pick nits, but Las Vegas isn’t quite in Southern California. Close, but not quite.

  • Jupiter12

    The old lady in the Barbie Corvette is freakish!

  • Enochrewt

    Yeah the Barbie corvet is freakish, it’s worth the trip to the gallery just to see that.

    These are cool photos, even if they’re a bit creepy. Some of the people really didn’t seem like they wanted to be photographed. The guy was using some sort of flash too (I’m not a photographer at all) because every single picture has a highlight on the car door.

    Oh, yeah, take that UK!!

  • dbarak

    WOW!!! What are the odds of finding MYSELF in the photos??? Zero in this case, I’m not there. : )

    >>The old lady in the Barbie Corvette is freakish!

    I Dream of Jeannie, Nightmare Edition.