@protracta: David Gittens is a Brooklyn-born, Igbo Nigerian-American artist and designer who worked as a staff photographer at Car and Driver magazine from 1958 to 1964. In 1964 he married and moved to London, where he worked in advertising and fashion photography. Then he decided to build a supercar. He bought a used McLaren chassis, hired London coachbuilders Williams & Pritchard to shape the body, and powered it with a Chevrolet V8. He named it the Ikenga GT. Ikenga is a spirit in his ancestral Igbo culture, represented by a horned statue. It represents human achievement, accomplishment, and success. The body of the Ikenga was designed to be evocative of an African mask facing skyward to Spirit. The cockpit canopy represented the eyes of the mask, the raised intake on the roof the nose, and the rear end the mouth. The Ikenga MkII debuted at the Banking Hall at Harrods during the 1968 Earls Court Motor Show, where 30,000 people came to view it. It came with a leather interior and a matching set of Gucci luggage. Backing for a limited production run never materialized. The prototype was seized by the bank that had financed the project, afterwards Gittens returned to the US. He later used the Ikenga name for a line of gyroplanes. The 1988 Ikenga 530Z autogyro is now part of the collection of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. #arttok #aesthetics #blackart #africanart #design

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Sunday 19 April 2026 23:03:13 GMT