OOS Sculpture

Half-Buried VW Bug [Title Unknown]

2001 / Bob Cone & Pat Cone / Ames Township

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Once a prank pulled by a father and son, this partially-buried VW bug has become a popular piece of public art and photo stop. In 2001, Bob Cone and his son, Pat, took a VW bug that had been sitting in a barn near their mechanic shop for years and halfway buried it in a hole their neighbor dug for them. The bug was painted red at the time, but when a new version of The Love Bug came out, the Cones painted it to look like the famous car. After the white paint began to chip off, it was painted yellow.

Located off of OH-550, about 5 miles to the west of Amesville, there's not a great place to pull over to see it, as it's in the middle of a field surrounded by a small, but deep creek. There are private residential properties on either side, but it's unclear who currently owns the field in question.

Location: Across the road from 13281 OH-550

County

: Athens

Citation

: Bob Cone and Pat Cone, “Half-Buried VW Bug [Title Unknown],” Ohio Outdoor Sculpture , accessed August 15, 2022, http://oos.sculpturecenter.org/items/show/1892.

Title

Half-Buried VW Bug [Title Unknown]

Description

Once a prank pulled by a father and son, this partially-buried VW bug has become a popular piece of public art and photo stop. In 2001, Bob Cone and his son, Pat, took a VW bug that had been sitting in a barn near their mechanic shop for years and halfway buried it in a hole their neighbor dug for them. The bug was painted red at the time, but when a new version of The Love Bug came out, the Cones painted it to look like the famous car. After the white paint began to chip off, it was painted yellow.

Located off of OH-550, about 5 miles to the west of Amesville, there's not a great place to pull over to see it, as it's in the middle of a field surrounded by a small, but deep creek. There are private residential properties on either side, but it's unclear who currently owns the field in question.

Creator

Bob Cone
Pat Cone

Date

2001

Subject

Other

Source

https://www.athensnews.com/opinion/columns/the_view_from_mudsock_heights/never-mind-the-ladybugs-there-s-a-much-bigger-beetle-hatching-nearby/article_0491e391-cbdc-5633-9c79-26be93f9475e.html
https://www.facebook.com/VisitAthensOhio/posts/10157575280476319

Identifier

1892

Location City

Ames Township

Location County

Athens

Location Street

Across the road from 13281 OH-550

Location Type

farm

Installation Date

2001

Materials

metal

Additional Resources

The buried VW was apparently featured in an issue of the National Geographic magazine in a piece about Appalachia prior to April 2011, but the specifics have yet to be found.