Custom Porsche a work of art

This 911S was dubbed a “gender bender” by the New York Times

Sometimes it’s difficult to describe something that you really have to view with your own eyes.

With that in mind, I’m going to try to explain the paint finish of a 1967 Porsche 911S that was on display at the Concours on the Avenue in Carmel, Calif., last month.

The car is known as Por-she and is the creation of internationally recognized artist and educator Dr. Phyllis Yes (PhD), who was born Phyliss Richardson. She decided to change her name to something that was short and fun, and a friend of hers suggested Dr. Yes would be fun so that is what she became.

When the Porsche 911 project had its public debut at the Bernice Gallery in New York, the Wall Street Journal described the 911 as the “fastest doily on wheels.”

The New York Times called Por-she a “gender bender.”

Most of Yes’s work focuses on blurring the gender association with everyday objects.

“Lace is the social fibre women have woven for many generations,” she notes. “By covering traditionally masculine objects in lace, the gender of the object is neutralized.”

After being displayed in New York, the car was driven back to Oregon, where it remained in her studio for the next 25 years.

The Porsche 911S began its life finished in a Porsche colour called Golf Blue. The entire exterior was refinished in a pearl effect white as the base colour and with the help of two assistants the car was covered in lace. Shades of grey were airbrushed over the lace to create a lace-paint finish.

That was the easy part of the project. The large round canvas now had a pattern to follow, a bit like the paint-by-numbers kits that you might have enjoyed as a child.

Yes used tubes of pink and gold paint and an icing tip used to decorate cakes and painstakingly went over the lace pattern laying heavy beads of paint from the tube. I hope you can get the idea from viewing the photographs.

This labour-intensive process took 1,500 hours to complete. The sign on the car said “Please Touch,” as you had to run the palm of your hand over the finish to literally get a feel for what went into this artistic automotive masterpiece.

Por-she was purchased in 2010 by a gentleman who collects art and cars, so with this acquisition he received two for the price of one!