Encountering the Fruitmobile at Houston Hobby Airport
I had a layover at Houston Hobby Airport on May 21, 2025, which led to my publishing articles about William P. Hobby based on exhibits at the airport and Illy coffee vending machines. It is no exaggeration to say that I saw everything there was to see at Houston Hobby twice while doing laps around the airport. Among the notable things I saw, documented, but had not before now shared, was Jackie Harris’ Fruitmobile.
Photographs of Jackie Harris’ Fruitmobile at Houston Hobby
See the Fruitmobile from the side:
Now see the Fruitmobile from the front:
Finally, see the Fruitmobile from the back:
As you can see, the Fruitmobile is a very colorful car covered in artificial fruit. While the car was separated from the traveling public by glass, my photos came out well enough, all things considered.
Airport Information About the Fruitmobile
Also separated by glass was a sign explaining what the Fruitmobile is:
Here, we learn that the Fruitmobile is a 1967 Ford Station Wagon. The car had been donated by Carl Detering to the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art, which in turn commissioned a local Houston artist by the name of Jackie Harris to turn the Ford into a work of art, or, as the sign says, a “mobile masterpiece.” Ms. Harris had a vision for the car, and that vision was achieved with just “$800 worth of paint and plastic fruit” (I would have thought that it cost more, but to be fair we are talking 1980s prices). The completed Fruitmobile was auctioned off at a fundraising gala and returned to the Orange Show by the auction winners, leading to it becoming “a roving ambassador for goodwill” and “inspiring the formation of the Orange Show’s world famous Houston Art Car Parade…”
(I will note that the sign was oddly outdated. I took this photo on May 21, 2025, but the sign encouraged me to watch the Orange Show’s 38th Annual Houston Art Car Parade on April 12, 2025. Peculiar. But I digress.)
The Fruitmobile on the Orange Show’s Website
Careful readers may note that I did not note the “1989” date on the airport Fruitmobile sign. There is a reason for this. After summarizing the sign, I navigated to the History of the Art Car Parade on the Orange Show’s official parade website. According to the website: “In 1984, Kit and Carl Detering donated a humble 1967 Ford station wagon to the Orange Show Foundation to be auctioned at its annual gala.” The website says 1984, but the airport sign clearly says 1989. I suspect that the website is correct for several reasons in addition to the fact that it is the official website of the Orange Show. The website, like the airport sign, states clearly that the Fruitmobile played a decisive role in the Orange Show’s Houston Art Car Parade. But the website notes that the first parade of art cars following the Fruitmobile was organized by artists Rachel Hecker and Trish Herrera in 1986. The first official edition of The Art Car Parade occurred in April 1988. Both 1986 and 1988 predate 1989, so we can say with some confidence that the sign at the airport had a single typo, 1989 instead of 1984.
While the Fruitmobile was put together in 1984 rather than 1989, 1989 was a pivotal date for the Orange Show’s Art Car Parade in different sense. I quote from the website: “A pivotal moment came in 1989 when California artist Harrod Blank arrived with his art car, Oh My God. As he traveled the country documenting America’s art car movement—work that would later become two books and two films—he spread the word about what was happening in Houston.” The website touts the growth of the Art Car Parade. As of my 2026 visit, the site notes that the parade now sees more than 250 art cars from 23 states, Canada, and Mexico, a live audience of more than 315,000 spectators, and non-car creations including bicycles, unicycles, lawnmowers, and go-carts.
A 2005 Article About Jackie Harris
While we have learned about the Fruitmobile and the parade, we have learned little thus far about the woman behind the Fruitmobile, Ms. Jackie Harris. I found one photo on the official website titled Jackie Harris on the Fruitmobile, so we can assume this photograph, which looks like it should be from the mid-1980s, is of Ms. Harris. As for information about Ms. Harris herself, I found a May 5, 2005 article by Keith Plocek titled To the Fruitmobile! This article caught my attention because unlike the other articles I dug up, the reporter was quoting Ms. Harris. I will briefly summarize the points of interest while encouraging people to read the article for themselves.
Mr. Plocek talked to Ms. Harris while she was performing maintenance on the Fruitmobile in 2005, more than two decades after she first turned the 1967 Ford Station Wagon into a colorful work of art. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Ms. Harris noted that “[t]hrough the years, as things have come off of it, I’ve had to redo it and put things back on it…”
Mr. Pocek stated that the Fruitmobile was “credited with starting the whole art-car phenomenon,” which is an opinion we saw in the contemporary articles as well. But it was neither Ms. Harris’ first, nor last, art car. Ms. Harris explained that the first car she worked on was a “small green Datsun” owned by her friend, Toni Silva. Ms. Silva was apparently a fan of dragons. Ms. Harris explained that she “painted a dragon all over the whole car: the hood, the roof, the sides.” Ms. Silva was apparently satisfied with the work. This work occurred on the University of Houston’s Lawndale annex, where, according to Mr. Plocek, “Harris and other artists ran wild in the ‘mid-80s.” The wild artsy fun continued unabated until it came to the attention of school administrators, who, according to Harris, first slowed things down, and then began imposing additional rules and regulations which, predictably, “was the death of it.”
Ms. Harris did not graduate college: “I’m like one of those art students who went to art school for, like, seven or eight years and never got a degree.” But while she did not earn a degree at the University of Houston, she did paint cars: “a panther on one, grasshoppers on the other.” It was while Ms. Harris was a student at Houston that she was commissioned by the Orange Show, which was then a small organization, to do something with a 1967 Ford Station Wagon. As we know, Ms. Harris turned it into the fruit mobile. She explained her thinking: “I always liked still lives.”
Toward the end, Ms. Harris discussed various art car parades and disputes between herself and some other artists and parade organizers who wanted to charge money for admission. Those issues are beyond the scope of this brief summary, but they give insight into Ms. Harris’ thinking as an artist.
At the end of the article, Ms. Harris noted that the car would not last forever, but that she had an idea for what should happen to it when it is no longer street-worthy: “My thought is, when we’re done with it and it really has to go, I’m giving it to the Smithsonian.” I found a 2005 photograph of Ms. Harris sitting in the Fruitmobile (while wearing roller skates) in the 2005 Art Car Parade, but I have not come across anymore recent references or interviews.
I found another interesting article titled Art Car Mania Still Strong by Tarra Gaines writing for Downtown Houston, published on March 1, 2017. This article featured comments from Suzanne Theis, who was executive director for the Orange Show for over two decades, including in the early 1980s. Ms. Theis explained that there was a budding “art car” movement in the early 1980s, and Ms. Harris stood out in the movement: “There were a number of painted cars, some were made by people associated with the University of Houston art program, Jackie Harris in particular, and there were a few that were just random cars that you would see on the street.” Regarding the 1967 Ford Station Wagon that would become the Fruitmobile, Ms. Theis stated that she liked the idea of auctioning off an old car instead of “a brand new BMW” like other foundations tended to at the time. Regarding the Fruitmbile, Ms. Gaines wrote: “The Fruitmobile was used as a kind of ambassador of folk art to the public and quickly became one of the most famous art cars ever created.”
