Once upon a time, the black and white door you see here was part of a late 1990s Mazda Protege. In fact, perusing the images at Julien's Auctions where this door will be sold, you can see a Mazda sticker on the inside of the window along with the original tan interior panel. But the magic takes place outside, where street artist Banksy painted a depiction of a person looking skyward, among other things.
Now, the door could be worth far more than the entire car from which it came. The auction house lists an estimate of $100,000 to $200,000 for the door, but we won't know the actual price until February 15 when the bidding wraps up. It's part of Julien's street art event taking place in Beverly Hills, though online bidding is open right now. It's unclear if there are any bids at this time, but the action starts at $25,000. For the record, that's considerably more than the Protege's as-new sticker price back in the day.
The door is just a portion of Banksy's original creation. Called "Crazy Horse," the entire Mazda and the side of a box truck were painted to depict a rather spooky war scene. The car featured people looking up at the truck, which had horses wearing night vision goggles bearing down on them. Per the auction description, the scene included a phone number that, when dialed, played audio clips of a 2007 airstrike in Iraq. The Apache helicopter involved apparently had a code name of Crazy Horse 18, providing the inspiration for this work.
We couldn't dig up anything official regarding the whereabouts of the rest of the piece, but a Banksy-focused blog claims the car and truck were removed just days after going up in October 2013. The truck and car – missing both driver-side doors – were allegedly loaded onto a truck and hauled away.
Any guesses as to what the final bid price will be? Jump into the comments and let us know your thoughts.
