User:AndyQuirky/sandbox

Bibliography Andy Saunders was born January 28th in Poole, Dorset. As I young child Andy dreamed of owning a custom car, his passion of such television cars as the Batmobile and lady Penelope's Rolls Royce fuelling his imagination to a point of desperation. During his childhood he subscribed to 'Hot-car' magazine whilst all other children were reading comics. Andy's creative genius with cars started to show at a very young age with every school subject being over ridden with automotive designs to the extent that one particular school report at the age of 13 said "Andrew has 110% ability to absolutely every subject........ to do with the automobile, if this interest could be diverted to his school work he would be the very best student we have ever had ." Due to a major health issue as a child Andy's dream to own a custom car was brought forward due to his father giving him his first car at the age of 15 to work on whilst awaiting a major operation. Little did anyone know at that time that this car would be the start of something that would eventually lead Andy to become a leading light in automotive show car design / building.

Being dubbed one of the most prolific independent car designer's on the scene today being a high point in his career.

Projects

Andy's work knows no boundaries. His ideas jumping erratically across a myriad of thoughts and patterns from concurs restorations to mind blowing designs with an attention to detail second to none, but of recent years what has brought Andy's work to the attention of big commercial companies is the speed he can actually produce one-off sculptures and vehicles when the need is required. The Idea of speed building coming about through a BBC 2 television program called 'Panic Mechanic' where he was chosen as a designer and builder in which each design project had to be created in a time frame of just 2 days. Panic Mechanic spawned a host of similar shows across the world but Panic Mechanic was the original of such programs. After this initial learning of high pressure 'speed building' Andy found new enthusiasm for his Art. Firstly taking on the challenge with a team of two others, Jim Chalmers and Doug Brown built the lowest car in the world, on stage in a world media arena in a time frame of just 3 days in front of a passing audience of 25,000 people. The challenge was taken and completed by the allocated time of 5pm on the third day where upon the World Record for the lowest car in the world was once again in Andy's hands, the record was taken by a 'Fiat 126 biz' measuring just 21 1/4 inches high and the legend of 'Flat Out' was born.

Flat-Out was so popular as a media pull that the Melbourne International Motor show had it flown to Australia for their Motor show press car the following year. The success of Flat-Out has lead to many other ridiculous stunts including the building of the Lowest van in the world, again on stage but in front of a 33,000 strong crowd at Bug Jam at Santa Pod raceway where a VW type 25 camper was chopped ( lowered in body height ) by a massive 4' 3" ( 1.3 meters ) taking the camper van down from a towering height of 7' 7" to just 3' 3" ( 2.3 meters to 1 meter ). This time the media attention grew even bigger, it was photographed and appeared in 7 daily national newspapers the following day, it had television appearances coming in from every corner and radio interviews as far away as Australia and within two weeks of the gig 'Van-Cake' if typed into Google could be found on 24,000 websites around the world. Andy's work gained massive respect by global car manufacturers because of the media attention he managed to achieve. This was spotted by one very clever man at Hyundai UK who commissioned 3 Show Cars in succession.

The last commission as of this time Andy accepted was to build for 'BBC Top Gear'  a replica road version of the NISSAN Delta Wing Le Mans 24 Hour race car, which was completed in a time frame of 39 days and driven for publicity at the Le Mans 24 hour in 2012. Andy's work being so authentic that his car was asked to take part in a press call at Nissan HQ in Le Mans after the race car received heavy damage in an accident during the night racing.

During the years Andy has been doing this kind of work his list of achievements has grown vast and like his designs themselves his achievements also hop scotch across a myriad of different arenas. In his personal files Andy has 257 magazines that have printed full feature's on his work, the biggest feature being a massive 14 pages plus front cover ? His work has been featured in magazines from 41 different countries including India, China and more recently Russia, But what is even more amazing is the diversity of some of the publications. The features are not limited to just car magazines. His work has been featured in such publications as The Big Issue, Euro-Star, Chat, Lusso and the very prestigious Rodders Journal to name but a few. Newspaper articles fill boxes in his office with cuttings from all over the world including the front cover of the Quala Lumpa Sunday Times. His work has been exhibited in virtually every European country including the prestigious Essen Motor show in Germany, 14 times, every single Scandinavian country, America, Korea and Australia twice and every single car built is now in private collections or museums around the world including one car which now resides in Barbados.

His attention to detail being so defined that one car, Saline Warrior' designed in the style of a salt lake race car and built in two days on the BBC 2 Panic Mechanic program has since gone on to private ownership in France where upon the guy so impressed with its overall look has brought together some real automotive talent and made a full blown race car chassis and running gear for Andy's humble little body and the car has gone on to race Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah for four years now and has taken the unofficial record for 750cc up to 140 MPH and yes the race car body has not changed 1mm from what Andy built in 2 days so much is his understanding of style. Andy's work is so universally liked and appreciated that it appeals to just about every sector and this shows in the diversity of places he has been invited to, he has been chosen to exhibit in places that few have ever been invited, with invitations events such as Louis Vuitton Concurs de Elegance at The Hurlingham Club Chelsea, twice. The Good wood Style et Luxe Concurs de Elegance, The New York Concurs de Elegance in Manhattan, Central Park and the Scwechzingham European Concurs de Elegance to being asked to be the press car of Major motor shows across Europe, Korea and Australia to hopscotching across to being one of only 10 cars EVER chosen to be displayed at the massive Hells Angels 'Bulldog Bash' motorcycle event.

Andy's authority in his art also got him the job of organizing a 'Show Car' stand each year at the London motor show Earls Court for a period of 16 years until it moved venues and since then several appointments of advising museums with particular exhibitions.

Andy acknowledges and understands that cars can be Art and with this thought in mind he launched himself onto an unsuspecting Turner Prize when after hosting his own 6 week long C-ar-t exhibition in an art gallery he attained 76 nominations for his work to be judged by the Turner Prize committee. They refused to include Andy's work in the judging stating that it was not art ?

The exhibition caused unprecedented press from every corner including a front cover and wonderful inside story in the London Evening Standard written by The acclaimed art critic Brian ?????? 10 minutes on BBC2 Top Gear and a television documentary about Andy's life long work.

Andy has two achievements in his life that he counts as major high lights. One being his first world record, Claustrophobia taking the world record for the  "Lowest car in the world"  down to a height of  34 1/2 inches  but with the whole experience being enhanced by the 'Guinness Book of Extraordinary Records' coming into print with Claustrophobia being on the front cover !

The other major high light being the Good wood Concurs de Elegance when the organizer told him that in the history of World Concurs de Elegance events No One had ever been invited to enter concurs with 3 self built cars spanning three areas of build, a Restoration, a Replication and a Custom, these three cars being The Aurora ( restoration ) The X 2000 ( replication ) and Indecision ( custom ) at Good wood Style et Luxe in the space age category.