How’s your day going so far? Pretty well? Free of, say, deep-set feelings of discomfort and existential disgust and a body horror that makes you want to just launch yourself into the nearest black hole? If so, great. But how’d you like to change that? If you feel like your day has been too free of such terrors, allow me to introduce you to a 2020ish Toyota Camry that has had its interior redone in what looks just like human skin, down to having pores, moles, blemishes, and hair. Oh, and a nipple. There’s at least one nipple in there.
Yes, a car interior slathered in human skin! It’s as good as it sounds! The skin can also redden and, significantly, get sunburned. Because that’s the real point of this car, not making you want to stop being a corporeal being altogether, but rather to make you more aware of the dangers of skin cancer, and in that context, it does a pretty good job.
The car was commissioned by Australia’s mycar Tyre & Auto and is designed to bring about more skin cancer awareness, as Australia has one of the highest skin cancer rates in the world. The car’s interior is upholstered in a (thankfully) synthetic material that reacts to UV exposure in much the same way as human skin, so you can see how much risk there is even while you’re inside your car.
The company worked with an expert in the field, Dr. Jo Maitz, Burns Surgeon-Scientist at Concord Hospital in Sydney, who describes the experiment as
“…an important reminder to drivers and their passengers to understand the UV risk and protect themselves.”
Dr. Maitz also worked closely with the team that made the Sunburnt Car, who normally specialize in creature and prosthetic special effects, so they’re very used to replicating highly-realistic-looking skin. Damian Martin and Adam Johansen were the principal craftspeople behind the interior, and they did a fantastic job, both based on the metrics of accuracy and demonstrating the effects of sun on skin and on how absolutely mind-scramblingly disturbing the end result is.
It’s so creepy. The hair:
Hair is bad on a dashboard, but somehow it’s even worse on a seat:
…and I think this is some sort of scab?
…and holy crap, they actually did it, I think this is a nipple, a mothergrabbing nipple:
It’s terrifying. And look, I get it’s for a good cause, and while this video from a local news channel states the “intention wasn’t to make people feel discomfort”:
…there’s no way they weren’t aware of the gut-level impact a car full of skin and hair and pores and nipples would have on people. I mean, that’s why I’m writing about this now. Because it makes me feel so very uncomfortable. Now I know how a Christmas tree must feel when it’s dragged into a wood-paneled den. Terror. Blind, unconscious terror.
It sort of reminds me of the work of photographer Charlie White. He tends to use props that are disturbingly biological, like whatever the hell this woman is manipulating there:
Whatever that is, it would be right at home as, say, the gearshift in this cursed Camry. Look, mycar Tyre & Auto, I think you accomplished whatever you needed to accomplish with this thing. I’m thinking about skin and skin cancer and whatever. Mission accomplished.
Now please kindly launch this abomination into the sun.
Top graphic images: mycar Tyre & Auto
Seat covers are peeeeeepoleee….
Doesn’t laminated automotive glass protect against UVA and UVB?
In any case, governments should be advocating for ceramic window tint on cars, not actively fighting against it. It should probably be factory installed and mandated at the manufacturer level.
Please don’t show this video to the folks at Darts or Mansory.
12 hr early on posting this for April 1st?
“but rather to make you more aware of the dangers of skin cancer”
There are better ways to do that. Like this video “How The Sun Sees You”:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o9BqrSAHbTc
If Australia is so concerned about solar skincare why not take the lesson from this video and install UV camera/displays like the one used to make this video in public areas with free sunscreen dispensers so people can apply it effectively?
All this but yet they still don’t have UV Protection for car windows.
I don’t even want to think about what you are likely to find in any of the seat crevices. I mean if you think cheerios and stale French fries just imagine what a teen boy hitting puberty is doing when he offers to detail the car. Don’t anyone come in the garage while I’m detailing it.
Oh Yuck! You just know that they are going to put this on robots.
Imagine an aborted human fetus converted into a necrobot.
Is that part of a cyberpunk book series? It sounds familiar.
Necrobots are actually real:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8ABHOFynIA
I’ll take your word for it. There’s no way I’m clicking on that.
For a human fetus to work, you’d need intact blood vessels, muscle tissue, and nerve tissue, plus an energy source as well as a means to send the necessary signals. Theoretically it’s possible. Might even be easier to use it for a xenobot/necrobot hybrid that could generate the needed cells on its own.
So a fetal terminator?
Sort of. Maybe like a fetal baby xenomoprh, it you could get some razor-sharp teeth in it and enough muscles to burrow through human flesh. It would be almost entirely flesh, other than maybe an AI/computer integrated in place of brain matter and some metal teeth. Think of the possibilities!
That thing is going to have quite a backstory.
I did. No human fetuses. It’s ok unless you have a greater than typical fear of spiders.
Yo, I heard you like pet taxidermy…
I do! I also enjoyed oggling at the abominations created in the book “Crap Taxidermy”.
JFC, this is absolute nightmare fuel.
Although… I’m now having thoughts about what I may want done with my body once I pass away.
Funny, no one had a problem with sheepskin seat covers, had them in all my convertibles back yonder. I think half of the used cars I looked at in the 70s- to 80s had them.
This is even weirder with knowledge of the company that commissioned it. MyCar is a retail chain service centre, mostly for tyres etc, that spun out of Kmart (yes, we still have them in Australia, long drive separated from the US counterpart).
So I guess this would be equivalent to Pep Boys commissioning a car with slightly hazy photorealistic human eyes for headlights to raise awareness of cataracts: a seemingly noble idea, but…why are you doing this?
It’s a blue light special then?
Eeeew.
Just when I thought there was no way to make a Camry less appealing, you show me this.
This is Human Centipede levels of gross.
Does no one remember Graham? The first human designed to survive a car crash?
https://youtu.be/0r9u7Rn-nm0
Having your car detailed now involves shaving.
Huh, reminds me of my luggage set
After a hot day in the sun, that car has to reek of sweat, armpits, and baloney. Just like my teenager’s Toyota.
This skinjob tops todays worst read – https://sucettegoutbite.fr/en/the-dick-flavored-lollipop-2/
“It rubs the lotion on its….car seat?”
Doesn’t instill the same fear in me.
Honey, the Camry has a dermatologist appointment at 3. Can you take it over?
It is a Scaramancar.
“…and holy crap, they actually did it, I think this is a nipple, a mothergrabbing nipple”
Looks like cancer?
Yeah, that looks like a cancer spot to me, not a nipple.
Is it worrying that, reading that, I thought ‘babygrabbing’ is more appropriate?
Jason, where would this fit in the Pixar Cars universe?
This is so cool! If I ever did a fancy interior on a custom car for myself, this would definitely be the way to go. Maybe a Cadillac Hearse from the 1950s would be my choice for this.
I’d totally wear this hat, tie and this mask when driving it:
Hat: https://darkseedcreations.com/skinned-cowboy-hat/
Tie: https://darkseedcreations.com/human-skin-tie/
Mask: https://darkseedcreations.com/love-the-skin-youre-in-flesh-mask/
And wear a suit like that of this video game character:
https://megamitensei.fandom.com/wiki/Sakahagi
Finally, the Ed Gein edition I’ve been waiting for.
Skin in the game.