Teenager Plans to Pay Tribute to Michael Jackson Through a Smart Car

When Michael Jackson died, the whole world predictably mourned. News of the King of Pop’s untimely death has also resulted in thousands of tributes from his fans all over the world. One such fan, 18-year old Eric Callisto, paid his respects in a very unconventional way.

The teenager from Indiana is commemorating the life and times of Jacko by designing a Smart car. Callisto created a website where – for a $10 donation – fellow fans can have their names, businesses, or websites, put on the car.

It’s an unusual tribute even for Jackson’s standards, but Callisto says that the idea popped up after seeing the unprecedented grief Jackson’s fans sent out through Twitter. While we can’t fault Callisto for his intentions, it seems like an unusual tribute to a star known for being unconventional. Nevertheless, Callisto is still seeking the support from the Jackson family with the hopes of making his ‘tribute-designed’ Smart Car, the ‘official’ tribute car for Michael Jackson.

Unusual indeed.

In any case, if you’re a Michael Jackson fan and you feel that there’s still something you can do for your fallen idol, you can click on the website below and show your appreciation for the King of Pop by participating in Eric Callisto’s tribute car.

Michael Jackson's Toy Car

Michael Jackson's toy car is seen on display in Beverly Hills, California, April 13, 2009. Thousands of items owned by Jackson will be auctioned off starting April 22, 2009 by Julien's Auction and could raise between 10 and 20 million dollars.The jewel-encrusted glove is the most iconic piece, it's estimate is between 10 and 15,000 dollars, but it could easily sell for something in the region of 100 to 200,000 dollars. The Beverly Hills exhibition of Jackson items going under the hammer give a rare insight into the pop star's former life at Neverland. Extraordinarily elaborate costumes, a customised Rolls Royce limousine, antique furniture, lifesize statues of superheroes and Star Wars villains, from Batman to Darth Vader, and a fully equipped computer game arcade are among the lots.

Fun at the Neverland Ranch

Car fun. Not the creepy kind. God, I hope not. Innocent until proven guilty. And so forth.

So the King of Pop is in, shall we say, tremendous financial trouble, and last fall Michael Jackson lost ownership of his vast Santa Barbara-area fantasyland, Neverland Ranch. With it, a giant hoard of mostly adolescent treasures of the Sega Strike Fighter (and Virtua Racing!) arcade console and Boba Fett-in-original-packaging variety. And more than a few cars and car-related toys. All of the contents of the estate, in fact, and all now going to auction to help settle the debt.

Who knew he could even drive? Who needs to when you can moonwalk?

There are only a handful of actual collector cars in the sale that I’ve found. Auctioneer Julien’s says this is a reproduction of a 1909 Autocar detamble Model B roadster. It’s full size, if you’re wondering, with some sort of internal combustion engine, but details are otherwise lacking.

This is the only bona fide collector car in the bunch, a Cadillac Fleetwood made rather famous as the Driving Miss Daisy movie car. I’d guess Jacko was more interested in the Jessica Tandy connection rather than Morgan Freeman. The auction catalog calls it a ‘54, but there were two cars used in the film, a ‘55 and a ‘56, and I can’t tell them apart from the front, so the whole thing is kind of sketchy.

This is both not creepy and really cool, a Jimmy outfitted for on-ranch emergency duty. The catalog says it’s a six-cylinder. A 4.8 V-6 (non-Vortec?) was the base 3500 engine, but I’ll be damn surprised if you could get a High Sierra 3500 dually with a six. Carfax says the VIN is wrong, but the one they have printed shows a W-code engine, so I’m going to say its a 454. The 292 made a listed 115hp, so any fire would have been out long before the NFD arrived.

OK, now we are getting into creepy territory, but on the basis of absolutely no information at all, I’m going to say this was used by Neverland employees, not MJ. Carfax doesn’t like this VIN, either, but I think Julien’s wrote a “1″ as an “i.” I would drive this truck.

I would not drive this truck. Mr. Jackson should not have owned a van. I do kind of wonder about the louvers and scoop, though.

There isn’t much information about this E-Type Junior, but it’s part of a huge fleet of go-karts. Shows a lot of use.

Julien’s only has five of the eight catalogs online right now, so more might turn up. Here’s their press release:

Michael Jackson’s Curious Car Collection

The interior of Michael Jackson's 1999 Rolls Royce Silver Seraph.

As those of you who’ve seen "The best car songs... ever!" know, we are music fans as well as car fans. And while Michael Jackson got awfully strange and maybe a little criminal toward the end of his life, I love some of his music, and I think it’s a shame he so clearly never learned how to truly grow up despite - or perhaps because of - his absolutely massive success.

Maybe Jackson’s desire to live his whole life as a child explains why his car collection consisted mostly of vehicles that allowed him to bask in over-the-top luxury in the rear while someone else drove. Auto Trader UK assembled a slide show featuring some of Jackson’s cars in an article on a planned-but-canceled auction of Jackson items in February, including a 1999 Rolls Royce Silver Seraph limousine for which Jackson designed the interior himself, using lots of 24-karat gold.

Sadly, that limousine and a 1997 Neoplan Touring Coach (which doesn’t appear until near the end of the slide show) are the only really interesting vehicles in the bunch, and they are interesting mostly because they’re so over-the-top gaudy and gold (including the fixtures on the bidet in the tour-bus’s bathroom). No Ferraris or rare muscle cars, no hot rods, not even a well-preserved classic from the year of his birth - Jackson had the money, at least in the ’80s, to assemble a fleet of cool cars that would rival Jay Leno's. But no, he built a 2,700-acre amusement park instead.

Based on the segment from Jackson’s film “Moonwalker” called “Smooth Criminal,” though, he did at least appreciate the futuristic looks of the Lancia Stratos - he morphs into a 1970 prototype version to escape Mr. Big and his cronies in the video. Of course, Michael probably didn’t handle the driving for that scene, and maybe one of his collaborators selected that car to feature. According to Wikipedia, that car now sits in a private showroom for Bertone, who did the exterior styling, in Italy. But surely Michael could have found - and afforded - one of the other 500 or so versions of the Stratus. Why didn’t he?

I guess the King of Pop and I don’t have too much in common. I wear two gloves at a time, I’ve never had and don’t want a pet monkey, I wouldn’t hang my child out a hotel window, and I don’t moonwalk at all well. But if I had enough money to start assembling a collection of cars, you can bet I’d have some beautiful Italian cars, some American muscle, and I’d drive those babies myself.

Thanks for sharing your enormous talent with the world, Michael, and may you find more peace in the afterlife than you did in this world