Why You Might See Wacky Art Cars Rolling Downhill in McLaren Park

Bay Curious

KQED

History, Society & Culture, Places & Travel

4.9 • 999 Ratings

🗓️ 7 April 2022

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Bay Curious listener Rich Wipfler loves cars. So when he read that back in 1975 the museum that would become SFMOMA held a soapbox derby where local artists showed off wild, zany homemade creations careening downhill, he need to know more. We take you behind the scenes to meet the artists who starred in it. And, as luck would have it, the event is finally happening again -- April 10, 2022. Be there. Additional Reading: Wacky, Homemade Cars Will Soon Roll Down the Hill in SF's McLaren Park Amanda Pope's documentary: The Incredible San Francisco Artists' Soapbox Derby Reported by Mary Franklin Harvin. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz, Sebastian Miño-Bucheli and Brendan Willard. Additional support from Kyana Moghadam, Jessica Placzek, Natalia Aldana, Carly Severn, Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez, Ethan Lindsey, Vinnee Tong and Jenny Pritchett.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From K-QED.
0:02.0	It's a sunny afternoon.
0:04.0	It's a sunny afternoon in the spring of 1975.
0:16.6	Thongs of people are gathered on either side of a roadway
0:20.0	that snakes through McLaren Park
0:22.0	in San Francisco's Excelsior District.
0:24.8	As they watch, a person riding what looks like a giant black Converse sneaker
0:30.4	whooshes past them. Down the track they come with reckless abandon.
0:36.0	Coming up close behind it, a cast iron bathtub painted a lemony yellow wizzes by on what could have been the frame of a lawnmower maybe?
0:44.8	Something is going grand playing in the middle of the car.
0:47.6	Then another driver clings for dear life onto what looks like a torpedo,
0:52.2	curdling downhill barely inches off the ground.
0:55.0	Look out, look out, look at his vertical hold, just collapsed.
0:59.0	This was the first artist's soapbox derby,
1:02.0	held by the San Francisco Museum of Art, what we now know as
1:06.0	SF-Moma. And if you were there, well, I'm quite jealous. It was a race for homemade cars. No engines. You just needed to be able to roll, steer, and stop. And even those three things you didn't have to do super well.
1:22.0	We dug into this epic event from the didn't have to do super well.
1:23.5	We dug into this epic event from the 70s after we heard from KQED and Bay Curious
1:27.8	fan, Rich Wipfler in Menlo Park.
1:30.9	Late last year, I read an article in one of my car magazines about the event and it really piqued my interest.
1:36.6	I hadn't heard about it, although I was in the area at the time and missed out on this entirely but I'm fascinated no more.
1:45.0	Well Rich I've got good news for you.
	...

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