The early history of Cadillac Ranch

Cadillac Ranch Amarillo

The Artsy website posted a well-researched article of how the Cadillac Ranch art installation in Amarillo, Texas, came to be, including vintage photos of it being built.

Cadillac Ranch turned into a roadside icon — including for Route 66 travelers — in the four decades since local tycoon Stanley Marsh 3 commissioned it from the Ant Farm art collective in 1974. It’s probably the one of the most-photographed sites on Route 66, has hosted music videos and was the inspiration to a well-known Bruce Springsteen song.

Ant Farm member Hudson Marquez proposed another art project after Marsh initially rejected a documentary film proposal:

The artist threw out an idea — what if they printed fake seed packets with illustrations of cars coming up out of the ground, instead of carnations or cucumbers? “’49 Fords: Guaranteed High Yields,” they might read. Then these packets would be placed in with the real ones. “The whole idea was to get someone to look through and ask the feedstore guy, ‘What in tarnation is this?’” Marquez recalled. “And Stanley said, ‘That’s a fine idea. But why don’t we just do that for real?’ I said, ‘Grow cars? You mean like a Cadillac ranch? And Stanley said, ‘That’s it!’”

Another Ant Farm member, Chip Lord, had a different recollection of how Cadillac Ranch was born:

He said the collective was first put in touch with Marsh by a mutual friend from Albuquerque. On the drive back to San Francisco after completing their commission in Houston, he and Ant Farm member Doug Michels (now deceased) stopped by to see Marsh at Toad Hall. In Lord’s telling, the final proposal was inspired by a print advertisement for the 1959 Cadillac. Both Lord and Marquez agree, however, that the correspondence with Marsh was a form of artistic expression in of itself. The Amarillo businessman wrote all his letters with a special, large-font typewriter on oversized stationary that required additional postage. In a missive dated March 8, 1974, he responded to Ant Farm’s proposal with tentative interest: “It’s going to take me awhile to get used to the idea of the Cadillac Ranch. I’ll answer you by April Fool’s Day. It’s such an irrelevant and silly proposition that I want to give it all my time and attention so I can make a casual judgment of it.”

Some other tidbits from the article:

  • The Ant Farm had a budget of $3,000 to buy the 10 Cadillacs — most of them from junkyards.
  • The group had a devil of a time finding a 1957 Sedan DeVille for the project and started burying the other more easily procured Cadillacs before finding it.
  • Lord said the Cadillac Ranch served as a commentary of planned obsolesce and the prototypical Texas oilman selling off a relatively new car “when the ashtray got full.”
  • At the dedication, motorists passing by on Route 66 stopped and went to see what all the hubbub was about. Marsh, in his typically irreverent way, allowed them to join the party.
  • During the gala, a local Cadillac dealer placed a plastic flower on the ground at each buried Cadillac as if it were a gravestone.
  • Marsh periodically would repaint Cadillac Ranch in a various colors to cover the graffiti. But it invariably would be tagged again by visitors. One local artist is creating jewelry from the gazillion layers of paint that have fallen off.
  • Marsh frequently claimed the Cadillacs stand an angle similar to the Great Pyramid of Giza. Lord said this is not the case. The cars simply were buried at an angle that looked best. The only requirement was the cars must be leaning west.

So far, Cadillac Ranch has outlived two of its participants — including Marsh, who died in 2014 amid a swarm of lawsuits and criminal indictments over allegations he sexually exploited teenage boys.

Cadillac Ranch was placed in a non-Marsh trust not long before he died. The art installation presumably will remain there until the cars rust into the Texas Panhandle dust.

(Image of Cadillac Ranch by Morten Rand-Hendricksen via Flickr)

3 thoughts on “The early history of Cadillac Ranch

  1. I’m betting there was a combo of ideas that became this famed artwork. Nothing this clever just springs-to-life without some discussion, alterations and time… Here is one more tale about the origins of The Caddy Ranch…

    IN THE BEGINNING, the Ant Farm artist-crew along with art patron, Stanley Marsh, went to the proposed site for the art installation. It was (at the time) simply a wheat field with a crop yet to be harvested. A gentle breez was blowing. All commented how the movement of the plants resembled the oft written about swaying like ‘waves in water / the ocean.’

    The fun atmosphere of the site-visit had everyone making wise-cracks and joke’n. Upon the ‘water comment’ someone in the group chimed in: “Look, I see a FIN!” Then another and another repeated the line as though dolphins or sharks or any number of fish were appearing at ‘the surface of the waves’ or amongst the wheatfield.

    It was then mentioned, automobiles once had FINS. Why consider using the primo American car – with fin designs – the Cadilac. This design-specific collection could be installed to make the ‘tailfins’ resemble ‘fish amongst the waves of grain’ alongside the famed highway Hence, they installed a Caddy from every year they had a ‘fin-like-design’ and added it to the property. Since it was best to show the display as a ‘school of fish,’ the vehicles were grouped together, eventually in a single row so they were clearly visible by passing motorists. (Annual planting the crop of wheat was dismissed for several reasons.)

    The current installation of the artwork / Caddys is at the second location. It was moved several years back because of some problem and not the choice of Marsh.

    When we visited, there were tourists from France, Japan, Germany, England and the US. These European visitors were mostly from European Car Clubs that study Route 66. Some were so dedicated, they rented vintage vehicles in NY (where they had arrived) and were motoring to Chicago, then taking Route 66 for a ‘True American Experience.’

  2. I remember seeing it for the first time as I drove from Vegas to Chicago. Always looked forward to seeing them as I drove that route.

    Interesting article. Thank you for writing it,

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