For more than thirty years I have photographed car culture — the cars and roads, the signs, motels and service bays beside them. Art forms and technology changed every decade; the goal was always to preserve the memory.
Route 66 Art Cards
You may have seen me call them trading cards. They have a new name: Art Cards. At 6 x 9", they are much larger than a trading card. Each one is a physical, numbered edition art card, made to hang on the wall as much as to hold in your hand.
The first drop is sixteen cards, drawn from the Car Culture Route 66 archive built in the 1990s. Each card features a STOP: a roadside attraction along Route 66. Each is a numbered edition printed with archival ink. Each carries a certificate of authenticity on the back. Each one prompts memories.
Think of the stops a traveler would have known: a motel in Tulsa, a gas pump in Oklahoma, Twin Arrows out in the Arizona high desert, the Santa Monica Pier where the road finally runs out of country.
Small enough for the palm of your hand. Worthy of a frame. Big enough to hold a place in your heart.
The story rides along
A card is not just an image. Every card carries the history behind its stop.
Why did a gas pump in Oklahoma matter so much? Because Oklahoma was oil country. The same fields that drew wildcatters and boomtowns put gas in the tank of the families heading west on 66. The road and the oil grew up together — one needed the other.
Why neon? Because after dark, a traveler needed to know where to stop. Light was the advertisement and the promise at once: open, safe, still here. Pull over and rest awhile.
Why roadside motels? Because the motor court let a family on the road pull the car right up to the door. Many were mom-and-pop places — owners who painted the signs and kept the porch light on.
These are the small lessons the road teaches if you slow down long enough to read them. The cards are meant to slow you down. And to pass on knowledge about the lore of Route 66.
"66 is the mother road, the road of flight "
John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath (New York: Viking Press, 1939)
An idea: your memories, too
In these letters I keep asking about your road — the car your family drove, the sign the kids shouted at from the back seat, the town a grandparent grew up in.
One idea I am exploring: a simple way for families to connect their own memories to a card. A grandparent who lived along Route 66 could add the story only they remember — the diner, the station, the night the neon came on — so the card becomes a keepsake that carries both the place and the people. Something to pass down.
It is an idea, not a promise, and not part of what you buy. The card stands on its own.
A project that evolves
Route 66 Kicks is a work in progress. The road never stood still — towns grew, signs changed, alignments moved — and this project won't either. I will keep learning, keep adding stops, and keep sharing what the archive teaches. When something is ready, you will hear it here.
Stay on the road
The shop is not open yet. When the Art Cards are ready, this list hears first. The horn will honk.
Your turn: which stop along Route 66 would you want on a card? A motel, a pump, a sign that is still standing — or one that is gone? Tap Comments and tell me. Every reply is another mile marker.
The record has to outlast the room.
The Route 66 archive grows one stop at a time.
Get your kicks.
— Lucinda
Route 66 Kicks · Car Culture, Inc.
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