Featured artist: Doug Breuninger

It’s unlikely you’ve seen car art at this scale, but then we’re aware of no other artist that uses Post-it pads as their canvas. Doug Breuninger, as you may have guessed, is not your ordinary automotive artist.

“I can remember as far back as pre-school being attracted to cars,” he says. “During recess I would stand by the fence and stare at the bodyshop across the street. It was filled with all sorts of cars and car parts.”

Doug, who works at Galpin Auto Sports – a specialist vehicle customiser and manufacturer north-west of Los Angeles – comes from an artistically minded family, but he’s the only one who has turned their passion for art into a career. “My late father was creative and artistic – he was a prop master in the movie industry,” he adds.

Breunginer admits that he didn’t have the best grades at school, but his parents noticed that he enjoyed art. In 2002, unbeknown to Doug, they discovered the Art Centre College of Design in Pasadena and signed him up for Saturday classes. He knew almost immediately that he wanted to be a car designer.

In his third term as a transportation designer major he met Beau Boeckmann, president of Galpin Auto Sports. Doug clearly made an impact, because he joined GAS as an intern. When he graduated he became a full-time designer at Galpin. His design heroes include Peter Brock, Raymond Loewy and Chris Bangle.

One of Doug’s first projects at GAS was a Mustang for the US Air Force, to be used as a recruitment tool, and since then he has worked with Mercedes-Benz and Disney – designing a vehicle to promote the animated Tinkerbell movie.

Art isn’t Doug’s primary career – that remains car design – but to date he’s completed more than 170 Post-it paintings, prints of which can be bought for between $10 and $25. For information and commissions, visit www.notablerides.com