Most semi trucks are destined for a life of bland servitude, but a rather more illustrious fate was in store for this lucky Mercedes-Benz Actros 1845. Shortly after leaving the factory, it was coated with 9 gallons of paint and another 17 gallons of clearcoat lacquer at the hands of airbrush artist Walter Rosner, whose work depicts scenarios from the early history of mankind.
The massive masterpiece even has a name: “The Cradle of Humanity” (a rather lofty name for a truck, even if it is a Benz) and took seven weeks to finish. It was completed just in time to star in the pre-Lent, Shrove Monday carnival procession on February 16th in the city of Aachen, Germany.
As you can see, there’s a lot going on, and since most of you probably make the carnival in Aachen to see it in person, well, we’ll just let Mercedes tell the story of its various vignettes: “The setting is the primeval African savannah, where a gorilla sits gazing across at its relatives, who are already walking upright. Two chimpanzees in a tree are also watching how the ancestors of modern man embraced the use of tools made of stone and, stretching across the length of the refrigerated semitrailer, how Australopithecus subsequently continued to evolve. On the co-driver’s side, early man is seen discovering fire, learning a variety of hunting techniques and guarding against the saber-toothed tiger during the Stone Age.
“Walter Rosner naturally includes artists in the story, too. He shows them busily creating cave paintings to leave behind to posterity. Across the entire vehicle onlookers can also discover numerous other small references to key highlights from the history of the birth of mankind: the theory of evolution versus religion, the emergence of the intellectual awareness in the guise of philosophy, or the first great discoveries such as the sundial. The back of the trailer also features an overview in facts and figures.”
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The Actros belongs to German freight and logistics company Josef Schumacher, which owns 160 trucks, nine of which have been turned into rolling murals, with names like “The Dinosaurs,” “The Gold Rush,” “The Crusades,” “The Constellations,” “Charlemagne,” “The Mega Truck,” and “The Emotion Truck.” All the predecessors of “The Cradle of Humanity” are used for normal cargo-transport duties, so it appears that this newest airbrushed member of the family is destined for the same fate.
from Car and Driver Blog http://ift.tt/1zAqGWa
via Agya
