Carhenge is Much Less an Enigma Than Its Inspiration, England's Stonehenge
Stonehenge is an enigma. Built some 4,000 years ago, the famed structure on England’s Salisbury Plain has yet to be comprehensively explained. Exactly how a nomadic population managed to transport dozens of 30- and 40-ton stones and painstakingly fashion them into an elevated ring will likely remain a mystery forever. Carhenge, on the other hand, is not quite so baffling. A replica of Stonehenge in terms of size and orientation, it took shape on the western Nebraska plains 15 years ago, with junked American cars in place of the slabs of stone. Building Carhenge, according to creator Jim Reinders, was “something to do at our family reunion.”
Reinders was born in Alliance, Nebraska in 1927, and later trotted the globe as an electrical engineer. Stonehenge captured his imagination when he called London home in the 1970s.
In 1982, Reinders’ father passed away. When his family came together in Alliance for the funeral, they began planning a reunion. “We decided to do something a little different together in five years,” recalls Reinders. “I proposed my idea [Carhenge] and everybody grabbed onto it.”
Just like clockwork, the Reinders clan again descended on the family farm just north of Alliance during the summer of 1987. The construction schedule involved seven eight-hour days of work. Notes Reinders: “We tried to get started early in the morning, but the beer drinking got a little heavy in the afternoon, so we usually knocked off a little early.”
With the help of a backhoe and a forklift, Reinders and a dozen relatives positioned 38 cars in accordance with Stonehenge’s modern appearance – as opposed to what it looked like in 2000 B.C. The autos – which include several classic Cadillacs, an AMC Gremlin, and a Willys pickup – were uniformly painted battleship gray.
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