mycar has skin in the game

A new project called The Sunburnt Car is built around a simple but dangerously overlooked truth; while Australians are highly aware of sun safety outdoors, many forget the risks once they get behind the wheel.

Created by TBWA\Eleven Australia in partnership with Odd Studio, the Oscar- and BAFTA-winning prosthetic, creature effects and character design studio, and informed by Dr Joanneke Maitz, a surgeon-scientist in Burns and Reconstructive Surgery at Concord Hospital, the campaign centres on new national research commissioned by mycar Tyre & Auto which reveals a sharp gap between perceived and actual protection in the car. 

While 92% of Australians say they consider themselves sun safe, 72% overlook sun protection while driving or riding in a vehicle. The research also found 70% believe they are protected from the sun while in the car, despite standard windows not fully blocking harmful UV rays, while 39% incorrectly believe car windows block those rays altogether. In practice, 65% do not apply sunscreen before driving.

To make that blind spot impossible to ignore the team created The Sunburnt Car, a vehicle completely reupholstered in synthetic skin designed to visibly react to UV exposure. Launching at Circular Quay in Sydney, the work turns a car into a visceral demonstration of cumulative UV risk. As the interior is exposed to UV, the synthetic skin burns, revealing the kind of damage that is easy to dismiss when it builds gradually over time.