The Cortex Cruiser by Jason Woodside
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This luxury sedan is called the “Cortex Cruiser” and it can be all yours.
Throughout the decades, there’s been an inextricable relationship between surfers and eccentric cars. This love affair is rooted in utility. In the ’50s, termite-infested woodies provided surfers both room and board—and room for their boards—on the cheap. Bondo-spotted Volkswagen buses became the standard issue of the ’60s. Eventually, any rust bucket with wheels that could get a surfer and their blade to some waves was used, abused and customized to better fit a surfy existence.
SURFER Magazine has always been fond of these weird whips, especially ones with added flare. In the late ’50s, SURFER founder, John Severson, painted flower petals and waves all over his North Shore jalopy. The car’s name, “Sunset Special”, was tagged in one of his whimsical fonts across its doors. There’s a picture of this car in SURFER’s very first issue with a couple of D-finned logs popping out of its back window.
In the late ’60s, SURFER’s resident artist, Rick Griffin, painted psychedelic eyeballs getting barreled in cosmic lineups all over a beat-to-hell school bus. He then packed the bus full of shortboard revolutionaries and women and headed up California’s coast in pursuit of fun waves and good times. You probably remember this scene from Severson’s 1970 film, “Pacific Vibrations”.
Just when you thought the freewheeling days of surfers’ wild-style cars were dead, white-washed by neutrally monotone Sprinter vans running into the six figures, an artist like James Woodside comes along and throws some color back on the scene. After scoring a 1982 Mercedes Benz 240d, Woodside blasted the luxury sedan with his artistic stylings and, like a cherry on top, slapped some surf racks on its roof. The “Cortex Cruiser” was born.
SURFER recently caught up with Woodside to talk about the Cortex Cruiser, which he and our friends at Vissla are giving away. The Cortex Cruiser can be yours by clicking here: https://www.vissla.com/the-cortex-cruiser/
