SHORT TAKES : Ranch Paints Its Cadillacs Pink

The legendary Cadillac Ranch outside Amarillo has been refurbished.

The 10 Cadillacs--planted in the ground radiator first along Interstate 10 as an artistic statement--were painted flat gray in January as part of a commercial for Lincoln Town Cars. But the ranch’s caretaker, Stanley Marsh 3 (he prefers “3” to “III”), didn’t like the new color. “The cars are supposed to be cheery and they looked dull, like it was an undercoat,” Marsh said.

So he had them painted bright pink. “It had nothing to do with any of those rock ‘n’ roll songs about pink Cadillacs,” Marsh told Texas Monthly magazine. “I did it for my wife on Valentine’s Day.” Marsh says he preferred the battered and bashed condition the cars were in before they were cleaned up for the commercial. “All that graffiti and vandalism gave them a real patina, like those Chinese vases that increase in value with each crack,” he said. “It shows people love their monuments.”