Tank a Brenna Reinhart / Josh Knowles project

The Pics >>>

Sometime during November or December of 1996 I had the idea to paint my car, an old dark blue Oldsmoblie Delta 88 Royale. So I bought several cans of spray paint (purple, yellow, light blue, and gold, if I remember) and a set of colored paint markers and put them in the back seat. The idea was that passengers or friends needing entertainment could write on the inside of the car while we drove or on the outside while we were parked or wherever they wanted. That December I got started painting the car with my friend Camille. We did the first round of spray painting, including the wheels and hood and sides and, well, everywhere. I felt so embarrassed driving home that afternoon, like I was walking around with a new homemade tattoo on my forehead. The true art happened early that January, though, when Brenna and I cracked open the paint markers and drew all over the obnoxious beast in the parking lot of the company we worked for at the time, Mesa Systems. Brenna had a Tank Girl fixation at the time (and still might) and painted "TANK" in huge letters across the back bumper, giving the car its name. We even gave it its own e-mail address, just to see what would happen. (No one ever e-mailed it.) Driving the car around I think I learned in a small, strange way how either attractive women or the hideously deformed must encounter the world. Other drivers would occasionally honk at me randomly out of excitement (I think) and pedestrians would sometimes rubber-neck when I drove by. Those were the days. Flash forward four years and I've found the old scans of the Brenna-Josh painting event. The car's long gone (sold for $1600 in summer 1997), but the images remain. They feature the old Olds in front of Mesa as well as a young Josh and Brenna. Look, we're so cute! You could just eat us up... Enough! On to the pics!

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e-josh
December 22, 2000