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In 2013, Jennifer Gross and her husband purchased a dark gray Volkswagen GTI for their three children to share. The zippy hatchback was passed down, one by one, to each kid. One warm afternoon in 2020, Gross briefly took back the car from her teenage son, returning it later with a surprising (and divisive) new look. 

To the surprise of her kids, Gross had the car done up with purple graffiti art showing a series of grinning, warped cartoon creatures, some bearing long eyelashes. Since then, her car — and hundreds like it — have become rolling art pieces for the Los Angeles masses, inspiring eyebrow raises, selfies and lots of questions.

The family hatchback is now a Karbombz!

The idea to dramatically overhaul her car’s look came to Gross after a friend from her native New York had his own truck graffitied with these zoomy, bloblike characters — the handiwork of Kenny Scharf, a California-born artist who started making waves in 1980s New York’s DIY art scenes. “I was like, ‘How did you f—king get Kenny Scharf to paint your car?’” Gross remembers asking. “That is so cool.’”

For roughly a decade, Scharf painted (or “bombed,” in street art parlance) cars. Anyone who wanted to have their whip spray-painted just needed to fill out a form and come by his studio in Inglewood. There, he customized cars for free with these squiggly creatures. His Karbombz have since become a ubiquitous sight around Los Angeles: You’ll see them emblazoned on cars nestled in quiet side streets, or inching along during rush hour on the 405.

“My car has that vibe of fun and craziness, like Kate Pierson from the B-52s,” Gross says. “Whenever I drive it anywhere, everybody honks at me.” (The verdict from her kids, by the way: Her two oldest kids shook their heads and declared they could never drive the Volkswagen again, but her youngest was all for cruising around in the art car.)

While not quite a secret society, those who’ve opted to have their cars done up with Scharf’s idiosyncratic figures share a unique kinship. It suggests a certain proclivity for pop and graffiti art, coupled with a flair for the irreverent. Libier F., an LA County resident who preferred not to share their last name and who uses they/them pronouns, had their 2008 Toyota RAV4 done up by Scharf about four years ago. They describe seeing other drivers with Karbombz as experiencing the “various Spider-Mans pointing at one another” meme in real life.

The car always elicits strong reactions, too. A few years ago, Libier happened to be driving past one of Scharf’s murals on the 10 freeway — adorned with characters not unlike the ones Scharf painted on their Toyota. “I see this car do a double take: Seeing my car, looking back at the mural, then back at my car like, ‘Wait … what?’” Libier laughs.

Scharf never intended to spray-paint hundreds of cars throughout Los Angeles. About 10 years ago, someone drove up next to Scharf while painting a mural in Alabama and asked if he would paint their car. Scharf said sure. “I’m happy to do things like that for strangers because spray paint is so fast, and I already had the can in my hands,” he says. Scharf snapped a photo of the paint job and posted it to Instagram. Then requests started pouring in from those who wanted him to create similar art on their own cars. 

He estimates that he’s painted over 300 cars, give or take, in the last decade. Two hundred or so of those are in LA, though he’s “bombed” cars all over the world. He’ll often take cues from the drivers: Their vibe, favorite colors, et al. From there, Scharf picks up paint cans and gets going, drawing on the cartoonish characters he’s developed for decades. Scharf describes these various characters as “Yikes” (rhymes with Nikes, resembles an upside-down swoosh) and “Speedys” (zoomy little beings that seem to go by in a flash). He can make these beings more placid or elicit a bit more urgency, depending on the driver’s preference. “Like, do you want your driver’s side to be ‘happy’ or ‘get out of my way’?” Scharf says. 

For Scharf, painting vehicles in a car-centric city like Los Angeles has a civic purpose. “I thought this was a great public art project,” Scharf says. “I totally think that the world of cars and freeways and traffic is incredibly boring. And I don’t understand why everyone covets their cars’ surfaces so much.”

Scharf has long spray-painted over everyday consumer objects, like blenders and phones, as part of his art. He sees the Karbombz as an extension of that. “It has to do with not only bringing art out of the places that you normally expect but also to enhance your daily life,” Scharf says. “And that’s what art can do: It can inspire in the most mundane ways.”

The Karbombz have since become a distinctive part of Los Angeles car culture, steeped in years of tradition around enterprising residents who view their car as more than an object whisking them from point A to point B. “Riding on the freeway, you’ll see a car like mine, then someone’s super decked-out lowrider, or then you’ll see a really old [Volkswagen] bug,” Libier says. “I think it adds to the diversity of the general LA culture, and car culture … when I see people doing their Sunday drives, I’ll say, ‘Hey, sick ass ride,’ [and] they’ll say the same to me.”

Though Scharf barely does his Karbombz anymore — not enough time, he says — he hasn’t totally retired the concept. He’ll still do them for special occasions, and a book about Karbombz is in the works. Some of Scharf’s other artwork, which uses similar cartoon figures, is on display at downtown LA art amusement park Luna Luna. Those who still want a Karbombz, though, can opt for the next best thing: nabbing sticker decals that Scharf created and sells on his website. 

Scharf has always maintained one rule with the Karbombz: Should the owners choose to sell their cars, they have to sell them as cars, and not as art pieces. Gross and her husband have admittedly considered selling their older, Scharf-bombed Volkswagen, which has notched about 100,000 miles these days and needs considerable maintenance. But every time she considers parting with it, she demurs.

“A certain person can only own this car; they have to know who [Scharf] is and they have to love it,” Gross says. “And I’m afraid if I gave it up or gave it to somebody, they would take this car and repaint it. That would be tragic. So this car’s going to the grave with me, I think.”