Post by TheDoctor » March 12th, 2006, 7:41 am
I saw this at a recent trade show in Munich, Germany.
The car was stripped o its pain, given a flat primer, and then gold leaf, (a micro-thin sheet of 24 karat gold, traditionally made by hammering gold between two layers of sheep-skin) was applioed to the entire body of the car and rubbed into place, a process known as "burnishing". Gold leaf has been used for millennia, as a decorative element in sculpture, as ornamental embellishment in art and architecture, and for a variety of other uses.

Why a car? Gold leaf?

The people who did this have recently opened a sort of museum, called Schuckwelten, or Jewellery World. It''''s a promotional gimmick. Worked for me. I visited  Schuckwelten in Pforzheim, and it was an interesting afternoon activity. It featured interactive displays about jewellery production,. the history of the craft, the origins of the industry in Phorzheim, which is known as "The Gold City" because of the sheer number of jewellery firms located there...around 3000 of them Prior to WW2, there were more that 10,000 of them, but a little misinformation handed to the RAF resulted in the city''''s watchmakers being misunderstood as being suppliers of strategic instruments to the Nazi war effort, so the city was virtually destroyed by bombing. It has taken a long time to come back to where it is now.
www.DavidKeelingJewellery.com