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Leith Cars Blog

What’s the Outcome When You Combine Creativity, Patience, and Ford?

BestInClass This week’s Best in Class looks to Leith Ford, where Monday’s blog served a dual purpose: reminded (some of) us of the big-haired, acid-washed-jean-wearing, and neon-colored 1980s via a transformed car; it also made us weep in envy that we didn’t own a Ford F150 RaptorTRAX of our own when the snow fell. It also seems appropriate to select this particular blog post because it presents “concepts,” which the 2014 Detroit Auto Show had many of just a few weeks ago.

While these vehicles are not for sale, you can find a full inventory of great vehicles down at Leith Ford in Wendell. In the meantime, enjoy the post!

Photo: Hetain Patel

Show of hands: Who feels like getting the week started off on an awesome note? We see a lot of you have responded with the affirmative hand-in-air gesture, especially you, Hetain Patel and Ken Block.

Who remembers the original Transformers movie, everyone’s favorite marketing ploy from the eighties? Maybe you grew up with it, maybe you put up with letting your kids watch it for the umpteenth time, or maybe you didn’t know about Transformers until the Michael Bay movies were released. If you fall into that last category, shame on you. You’re shunned from this blog.

Just kidding.

(But c’mon, man).

Regardless, the Transformers franchise has left an indelible imprint on many minds, and perhaps they made more of an impression on artist Hetain Patel than others. Patel’s work is often performance-based and is heavily concept-oriented. His pieces are “about being.” The piece that got our attention is Patel’s first sculpture, in which he took his first car, a 1988 Ford Fiesta, and remade it into the image of a squatting humanoid.

Of the project, Patel said, “For me, these ‘robots in disguise’ (as per the cartoon’s theme song) stand as a metaphor for the other, in a fantasy world where they can transform out of a marginal position into one of empowerment.” He also described the sculpture as family-driven. The original car was a gift from his father, and it was only with his father’s help that he was able to transform this one.

We’ve embedded the time-lapse video of the Fiesta Transformer’s creation, and it’s definitely worth the watch, both to see how it was made and to enjoy tunes from the 1986 film. To learn more about Hetain Patel, you can visit his website, and if you want to read more about the Fiesta Transformer, check out the TED blog.

We’re not done yet, though.

Photo: Ken Block

Last week, extreme sports Renaissance man Ken Block revealed his new baby: The Ford F-150 RaptorTRAX. As part of his mission to create the ultimate mountain assault vehicle, Block jacked up his Ford F-150 Raptor and appended Mattracks tracks where the wheels were. Then he gave it a Whipple supercharger, a full roll-cage, and a whole host of other features that will conquer any mountain en route to letting Block and his friends get their shred on. They live in Utah, but some of us here in North Carolina might be wishing we had a RaptorTRAX of our own if the weather forecasts for this week hold any weight.

If you need to see more of the RaptorTRAX to believe it, head over to Motor Trend and read up on where you should look. For answers to your questions about more awesome stuff to do with Ford vehicles, or if you’ve already done something awesome with your Ford and you want to share, leave a comment, email comments@leithmail.com, or visit us at Leith Ford in Wendell.