LATCHKEY BOYS

The Artist Behind Candy-O

If there is one album cover that we absolutely love more than any other, it has to be The Cars’ 1979 masterpiece, Candy-O. 

There was a time when you would buy one album, bring it home, and carefully slice the right edge of the shrink without completely destroying it. A time before digital versions reduced album covers to tiny squares on our phones; the artwork was part of the experience. You studied it—along with the liner notes and lyrics—while listening to the record. You read every name and examined every detail.

For us, Candy-O is that album.

A Master Meets The Cars

The artist behind the cover was Alberto Vargas, a Peruvian-American illustrator born in 1896. Vargas became famous for the glamorous pin-up paintings he created for Esquire and later Playboy. His distinctive “Vargas Girls” helped define American pin-up art for generations.

By the time The Cars began working on their second album, Vargas was 83 years old and largely retired. That didn’t stop David Robinson—awesome drummer, collector of pin-up art, and the man responsible for much of The Cars’ early visual identity—from contacting him.

In an interview about the cover, David recalls visiting Vargas at his home. During the visit, Vargas kept pulling incredible original sketches out from under his bed. All the while, he was holding a cigarette with a precariously long ash dangling directly over the artwork.

Just imagine watching decades of art history nearly disappear with one badly timed flick of a cigarette.

Vargas reportedly made it clear that The Cars’ music wasn’t exactly his kind of music (he was born in 1896, for goodness sake). But he understood David’s vision for the cover—and that was what mattered.

Enter Candy—and a Ferrari

Vargas needed photographic references from which to create the painting. So David arranged a photo shoot at a Ferrari dealership in Beverly Hills.

The model selected for the shoot was named Candy Moore.

Candy.

Honestly, what were the chances? It was reportedly a complete coincidence, although it’s almost too perfect to believe.

Candy posed across the hood of a 1972 Ferrari 365 GTC/4, giving Vargas the reference he needed to create what would become one of the most recognizable album covers of the era.

I’m not sure today’s Ferrari dealer would be quite as accommodating. I imagine the conversation ending the moment someone asked, “Would you mind if our model climbed onto the hood?”

Two Generations of Creativity

What makes the story even more remarkable is the unlikely collaboration behind it. Alberto Vargas had helped define American popular art during the 1940s. Nearly four decades later, David Robinson brought his work into the New Wave era.

Vargas may not have completely understood the music, but he understood the image: glamorous, stylish, provocative, slightly dangerous, and unmistakably cool.

In other words, he understood The Cars.

The result wasn’t merely packaging for an album. The painting became inseparable from the music inside it. We can’t hear “Let’s Go,” “It’s All I Can Do,” “Dangerous Type,” or the title track without seeing that red-haired Vargas girl stretched across the hood of that Ferrari.

That is what the greatest album covers did. They didn’t just help sell the music.

They became part of the memory.

Watch David Robinson tell the story:
The Cars Candy-O Expanded Edition—Interview with David Robinson About the Cover Artwork