Pterodactyl Car

THE ART OF TRANSPORT Ewen McDonald 1985
Roman roads were built to last. We can still marvel at the technology, the extent, the stone, the endurance of the Roman way.
Civilizations have been counted by the way they encompassed the concept of carriage
- the wheel, the road, trade, discovery and empires. What remains to consider, is how we in turn, will be judged by our roads.
For example, beside the Art Gallery of N.S.W. runs a deep ravine of road: a steady stream of cars speeding across the bedrock.

Outside of Sydney are freeways, deeply gouged and built to last and, like the Roman roads, they will be around for a long time to come. These tracts of earth-movery, of sheer strength and stone, deeply furrowed across the landscape, equally furrow the mind. Technologically we are capable of superseding these dangerous, inefficient and pollutant vehicles that now monopolise the mainstream.

Roadways present a list:- freeway, by way, expressway ... but to invert; 'a way of expressing, a way, by the means of, 'a way of freeing', the way to freedom', themselves artistic concerns, attempts at saying.
Freeways risk casualties: conversions, crashes and abandonings. Remnants of our driving litter the edgeways - skid marks, shredded rubber of exploded tyres traling and eel-like, the bits of metal brightly painted, rusted, the chrome, the glass — discards that are neither owned nor cared about. But from the dumps and marginal tracts of our existence comes the treasure - pieces picked up and reassembled, rough-cut and riveted, beaten and bashed... reshaped with and for, understanding.

Handled with all the care of the hot-rod; with all the daring and finish of the dragster; with the humour of the Flintstones of Bedrock - the bodgie car finally arrives, gatecrasher at a gallery. The motorway discard turns trump card. Arise Sir Lazarus; the Pterra/terror-dactyl car.
A skite in shining armour, this rustic/ atavistic car (the Atavar) is the sort of thing that the archaeologist would have liked to have dug up and preserved Instead, this phoenix-car, finely ribbed and fine-tuned, simply presents itself — old and new at the same time, it's much further on down the Roman road. Ambivalently both his and that, it sits idling, sucking breath and contemplates the passing of the cars.