Automotive decals, body kits, and vinyl vehicle wraps are hardly unusual—but an exterior rug wrap? I’d never seen or heard of anything like Rachael the Rug Dealer’s wild Porsche Cayman until it popped up on my feed this summer. Don’t worry, the rug is removable when the car needs to be driven or left out in the rain. But this is a well-executed and extremely novel example of car customization.
The project makes a lot more sense when you understand Rachael’s vocation: creating custom hand-tufted rugs through her shop, The Rug Dealer. The Porsche project is one of many unique rug’ified items that have been done up to demo the company’s offerings (tables, chairs, ottomans), but it’s definitely the most ambitious.
After seeing a teaser of the car on Instagram, I found the Rug Dealer’s site and asked Rachael about the car. She was kind enough to share not just a massive haul of photos, but a whole vignette about the project’s origin and execution.
The following is her story in her very own words:
“You don’t really decide to rug a Porsche. It’s the kind of idea that simmers in the background, just waiting for the right mix of obsession, opportunity, and madness.”
“For me, it started as a joke. After I learned how to make rugs, I remember saying, ‘One day, I’m gonna rug a Porsche.’ At the time, it felt ridiculous—like a dream that lived somewhere between meme and manifesto. But that’s how most of my creative ideas begin. I’m not the type to sketch a painting and call it a day. I need to push ideas to the limit, to test how far art can go. I’m an extremist, and I express that through my art.”
“So when the time came and the perfect Porsche came up for sale (a 2015 Cayman)—there was no question what had to happen next.”
“I didn’t start with CAD files or digital blueprints. I started with a die-cast model car, some markers, and a vision. I sketched the entire design directly onto the average-sized model, using Miami Blue and Shark Blue—two of Porsche’s most iconic colors. I wanted something bold but familiar, using inspiration from a project I completed months back, my waterfall ottoman, but on a much larger scale.”
“Once I liked how the design flowed with the body lines of the car, I scaled everything up. I covered my actual Porsche in tape and newspaper to create physical templates of each panel. It was the only way to account for the strange, compound curves and tight transitions of Porsche’s bodywork. These paper stencils were transferred to my tufting frames – the rugs were hand-made panel by panel, each one custom to its section of the car.”
“This has been a year-and-a-half-long project, juggling tufting the panels, fitment, mounting, and alignment of design elements for all panels to fit seamlessly. I’ve spent countless hours hunched over the car getting the right measurements, adjusting rug density to account for curves, carving the rugs to give them a three-dimensional feel—all for a car that I still drive daily.”
“Attaching rugs to a sports car isn’t exactly something you learn during art school. I didn’t want the rugs to be a permanent part of the Porsche. So I had to get creative; it had to be something strong enough to hold 10-15 pounds of rug and be easily removable for shows and display. That’s when I realized magnets were the best option for this project.”
“Every metal panel holds the rugs via magnets sewn into the backing. But for the plastic panels like the bumpers and side skirts? I stripped the car down and installed magnets behind the panels. Now, the rugs snap on securely from the outside, like custom armor plating. It’s all modular, so I can remove them for cleaning or transport—but strong enough that, theoretically, you could drive with them on.”
“[I did this] because I had to. This is how I see the world. If I can turn something into a rug, it’s not a question of ‘if?’, but ‘when?’ And if that something happens to be a Porsche—the car I’ve always dreamed of owning—then that rug better be the wildest, most unexpected, most me expression of that dream.”
“Originally, all I wanted was a nod from Porsche. A repost. A like on one of my reels. Just for someone to say, ‘OK, this is nuts … but I respect it.'”
“What’s happened since has blown past that. Now people are asking for interviews (like this one, wink wink). Magazines want to feature it. And it’s made me think—maybe there’s something bigger here. Maybe this is a career path. Rugging exotic cars. Creating rolling art pieces. Turning the absurd into the unforgettable.”
“I don’t know exactly where it’s going next. But I know this isn’t the last time you’ll see rugs on four wheels.”
I love the colors and pattern that Rachael came up with here, and as a rug-biz promotional tool, it totally worked on me—I really wish I had the cash to commission a custom rug from her shop now.
The magnetic attachment system is particularly slick and creative. It would be a little sad to sacrifice a Porsche to display purposes permanently, but the quick-release nature of this makes it a lot more practical. The rugged Cayman is a really cool accomplishment in both art and engineering!
Know about another cool art car we should see? Drop me a line at andrew.collins@thedrive.com.
Automotive journalist since 2013, Andrew primarily coordinates features, sponsored content, and multi-departmental initiatives at The Drive.
