Mutt Cutts

Remember the movie “Dumb and Dumber”, Mutt Cutts was the business the main characters ran, they drove a dodge van made to look like a giant dog, made of carpet.

I had wanted to recreate the van for years, finally a computation of custom hotwheels based on movie cars prompted me to give it a try.

So the first issue was, the dodge van got wheels casting isn’t long enough, vans are pretty long, but the casting was scrunched and shortened, so had to fix it. I chopped one can in half with a jewelry saw, attached a second filler peice to the middle and used Bondo to attach the two together, since everything was going to be covered with flocking, (the carpet/fur), I don’t need to be overly neat about the seams.

The legs, tail, ears and muzzle are all made from oven dried Sculpy clay, the Mutt Cutts label is polystyrene with a water slide decal applied. I also added small brass hinges on the legs like the real van had, in the movie the legs flip outward when going over bumps.

I also had to find wheels that looked authentic, these came from an M2 van and worked well after some aging.

The “fur” is flocking, the same stuff you apply to the inside of jewelry boxes or silverware boxes. Small fibers dusted into the surface and held in place by a glue/paint substance. The flocking is “puffed” on using a weird little tube tool, kinda looks like a cheap bicycle pump. The result is a fluffy appearance to the surface…sort of simulating the carpet on the original.

I used felt for the tongue and a sharpie marker for the nose and whisker marks. I think the headlights were Berber’s, baked into the Sculpy, but don’t really remember.

I was really happy with the results. I entered the piece into the contest and it turns out, 3 other Mutt Cutts variations were entered as well. Totally weird that so many would end up in the same contest. I didn’t win, but the car was also entered into the LA Nationals Pro Custom Contest where it also didn’t win, but did get a lot of attention.