A New Mexico artist spent more than a year turning parts from a 1953 Chevy Bel Air into a 10-foot-tall, 1,200-pound jackrabbit sculpture celebrating Route 66

It started with a chase. Two days before the city of Gallup asked Robert Wilson to make a sculpture for Route 66, he was running after jackrabbits on the trails of Albuquerque’s West Mesa. So, when the opportunity came, jackrabbits were the first thing that came to mind.Jackrabbits are quick, built for desert crossings and muscular; they seemed like a fitting symbol for the historic highway. In those respects, they were also similar to the old cars that once ruled the highway. At that moment, he knew he had to combine the jackrabbit and the car. That idea became Run, a giant jackrabbit sculpture made from salvaged parts of a 1953 Chevy Bel Air.

Sculpture from a salvaged car

Wilson chose a 1953 Chevrolet Bel Air as his raw material. He cut the car into pieces with a plasma torch, a tool he had never used before. Taking a car apart was new to him, too. Then he began the slow work of welding the pieces into a new shape.The car’s lines made the job easier. The curves already looked like an animal to him. “The ’53 Chevy Bel Air has curves and a kind of muscularity that I think fit with an animal like a jackrabbit,” he told KOAT.The artist, who retired from medicine in 2016 to focus on art full-time, said he was thrilled to have the opportunity. “I was overjoyed,” he said.

A rabbit mid-hop

The finished sculpture stands just over 10 feet tall and weighs 1,280 pounds. It is roughly the size of a car, which makes sense given where it came from. The rabbit looks frozen at the moment it leaves the ground.Wilson did not sand away the signs of age on the car. Paint, wear and rust remain on the metal, giving it more character. The surfaces still carry the car’s history, allowing visitors to see the Bel Air hidden inside the animal.The artist also added a few hidden touches. The rabbit’s left eye is the car’s original speedometer, permanently set at 66 miles per hour. That number is a nod to Route 66 itself. “You always see something you didn’t see before,” he told New Mexico magazine.People passing by can take a moment to observe the artwork. Study the paws, ears and legs, and you will start guessing which parts of the car became which body parts. Wilson wants people to keep looking because the sculpture rewards a second glance. “Look for parts of the paws and the ears and try to figure out what part of the car was used to make that paw, that leg,” he told the station.The sculpture sits at the west end of Babe Ruth Park in Gallup. It is close to the westbound lanes of Interstate 40 at Exit 22 and faces the El Rancho Hotel, a historic landmark on the old highway. Gallup has built much of its Route 66 identity around that hotel and the road that runs past it. So, this new installation is hard to miss. The project was commissioned to mark the highway’s 100th anniversary, and the location was chosen with that in mind. Travellers passing through now have a reason to pull over.For Wilson, this work is ‘recycled art’. He described Run in those terms. “RUN is meant to express the unexpected beauty found in re-used industrial materials,” he said.The artwork aligns with the spirit of Route 66, where weathered signs, giant statues and quirky roadside stops have pulled drivers off the highway for decades. The latest addition, Run, joins that tradition with a sculpture made entirely from scrap.