The Irreducible

Formerly The Illuminted Mystic Transport

This lovely art car was built by our campmates Bill Bonner and Nancy Panitch expressly for Burning Man. They brought it to the playa in 2003 and 2004, but unfortunately Bill has died and Nancy is unable to come back to Burning Man. I have inherited the vehicle and pledged to bring it back to the Playa, which I have done in 2008-2010.

The vehicle suggests to many the skeleton of some ancient graceful creature. Creationists, in their misguided opposition to evolution, think that many organisms are "irreducibly complex," which means they could not have evolved step by step. The Irreducible is an example of something that was truly intelligently designed.

Here it is by night in 2010. (Originally this page contained a time exposure from 2003 which showed much more of the interior structure. This is a 1/13th second exposure.) The vehicle also has a front headlight, and black lights which illuminate the sculpture on top and the passenger compartment. The internal lights will be removed for 2011 to avoid detracting from the effect and revealing any original vehicle appearance.

Here it is by day in 2010. Based on DMV advice, the real wheels were covered, the original roof was completely hidden, and the roof support struts were modified to hold high-resolution Burning Man photographs. In addition, the original seats were covered, occluding as much original vehicle as is practical with this design. While it may not be clear immediately, the side wall is not part of the original vehicle, nor is the mutated windshield, and in fact all of the original vehicle that can bee seen in this photo are the front wheels, the steering wheel, and a portion of the roof support strut. All else is covered. The front screen is to the best of my knowledge not original and has been radically modified so that most of it is removed to create two large oval eyes.

Here is what a normal Yamaha G-1 looks like.

From close to the vehicle you can see into the passenger compartment where original vehicle equipment (floor, dash, pedals, seat support) art visible. At very close range a few small areas of the original can be seen behind the frame. (The back, behind the seats, is covered in wood in the mutation.)

Here is a full gallery of photos though note that many of the night shots are longer exposures. Photos are tagged with date and sometimes this is in the caption.

And to make it more clear, here is the photo above with the elements of the original vehicle which are still visible marked in green with labels. As you can see it's not a lot. The main section of unmodified vehicle, not visible unless you get up close and thus not in this photo, is the floor and roof of the passenger compartment.

The vehicle comes on a 12' long car carrier, which has been modified with the addition of a wooden deck to support the narrower vehicle. The vehicle itself has an internal cart about 7' long with 5' wooden structures fore and aft. On the trailer it sticks forward and back about 3'.

Upgrade and redesign notes

In 2010 it was modified as described above to cover the wheels, roof and struts. A new 12v LED headlight was also added for night safety and visibility, along with better batteries. (In 2009 the lighting was replaced with a new system that ran on batteries.)

However, in spite of changes, because the vehicles has a skeletal aesthetic, you will notice there is a 2-person passenger compartment from the original vehicle present.

Plans for additional mutation under consideration include the following. We would of course prefer not to overdo it, and would like to know what set of change pass the test well without going too far.

1. Replace the entire roof with a wooden oval disk matching the aesthetic of the other mutations. Currently the original roof has wooden struts on top to change its shape and it is covered with fabric. The sound system will probably be eliminated as it is rarely used.
2. On the new roof a curved "fin" will complete the line of the central spine of the vehicle, and be lighted with LEDs to complete it at night.
3. Replace the seats with custom built seats in the oval aesthetic.
4. Build additional covers to more completely hide the wheels. Hiding the front wheels (which must turn) is problematic. Let us know if this is required; we see many mutant vehicles with visible wheels.
5. Cover the interior passenger compartment (seatwell area and dash) with suitable material to hide it. Because it must remain a place for feet and needs to have gas, brake, steering, ignition and controls, the mutation can't be extreme here, but this is only visible to people who walk up to the vehicle and look into it. We are open to suggestions here if this is not sufficient.
6. Further modify the roof support stuts. (They have already been converted to triangular photographic panels.)
7. Disable black lights which illuminiate any elements of internal compartment and passengers which glow under black light.
8. While the steering column and wheel is required, the wheel can be replaced with something non-standard such as a ship's wheel or custom wheel, and the column could be enclosed in a box or cone to alter the look.
9. More dramatic: If required the mutated windshield can be removed. As noted, with two giant holes it does not perform any windshield function. The entire roof and struts can be removed, though this is not a favoured course. Or the roof, struts and eyes. Removal is not overly difficult, it's just not the aesthetic we have in mind. It also makes the steering wheel (which of course has to remain) more visible. All my searches in Google image search for Yamaha G-1 do not show anything like this windshield, so while I don't know where Bill got it, it appears not to be stock.

All of this is an extensive project so advice is requested. I believe the following subset should sufficiently mutate as to avoid exposure of the golf cart or even things like the covered roof and seats from 2010 that still suggessted the shape of the original:

1. Full replacement of roof
2. Replacement of seats
3. Superior rear wheel hiding
4. Covering of passenger footwell and dash area in organic style (change to shape of interior will be modest, but none of this is visible unless standing close to vehicle. Cloth ruffles on steering column and modification of the wheel.

New part diagrams

Here is a badly photoshopped vision of the vehicle with new roof, new seatback and roof arch. Not included is new bench and existing (or new) hiding of rear roof struts, or any front wheel hiding we might attempt. It may not be clear from other photos but the golf car body behind the seats is already covered by a wooden frame, that just looks like erased white in the photo because it was taken from a real photo with the original seats.

We have worked up some CAD models of the new parts.

This would be the new roof, a disk like the disks of the vehicle. About 4.5' by 6'

A fin on top of the new roof, to allow the line of lights to complete as shown.

For new seats, this would be the seatback. A new bench would replace the old seats as well, also with oval lines but not as overt as it must be something people can sit on. About 4.5' wide. Oval armests may be added if they work visually.

Going beyond?

Finally it is possible to build a box around the passenger area up to the height of the wheel to hide that entire area from all who don't stand right next to the vehicle. I believe this would harm the aesthetic of the vehicle, and ribs would need to be removed to allow entry and exit, but it could be done.

With the addition of the lighted fin the following lines will be seen at night:

The lighting plan with a curved fin on top

While based on the much-deprecated golf cart, this vehicle has been called one of the best cart based mutant vehicles by photographers Steven Fritz and Lenny Jones on the Burning Man web site.