"Iconic Cadillac Ranch" Top 5 Page for this destination Cadillac Ranch Tip by Bunsch

The Cadillac Ranch was a huge disappointment. From photos going back about forty years, I was expecting a pink Cadillac or two. What exists now is a lot of graffiti-covered junk. All the original paint is gone, and some of the cars have been vandalized. I hate to say it is a reflection of the way our culture reacts to art, broadly defined, but it is hard to see it and not wince.

"Roadside America" had this to say about the installation:

"Standing along Route 66 west of Amarillo, Texas, Cadillac Ranch was invented and built by a group of art-hippies imported from San Francisco. They called themselves The Ant Farm, and their silent partner was Amarillo billionaire Stanley Marsh. He wanted a piece of public art that would baffle the locals, and the hippies came up with a tribute to the evolution of the Cadillac tail fin. Ten Caddies were driven into one of Stanley Marsh's fields, then half-buried, nose-down, in the dirt (supposedly at the same angle as the Great Pyramid of Giza). They faced west in a line, from the 1949 Club Sedan to the 1963 Sedan de Ville, their tail fins held high for all to see on the empty Texas panhandle.

"That was in 1974. People would stop along the highway, walk out to view the cars -- then deface them or rip off pieces as souvenirs. Stanley Marsh and The Ant Farm were tolerant of this public deconstruction of their art -- although it doomed the tail fins -- and eventually came to encourage it.

"Decades have passed. The Cadillacs have now been in the ground as art longer than they were on the road as cars."

Well, there you have it. If you're determined to go anyway, take Exit 60 (Arnott Road) from I-40. The display is out in a field to the south of the interstate, just off what looks like a service road but is actually Route 66. You can park next to the fence and walk out to the vehicles.

Address: Route 66, west of Amarillo