Height: 35 ft. Width: 18 ft. Length: 55 ft.
Farmers Insurance presents parade viewers with a dream vision – a blending of the major elements in many families’ lives, realized as a fanciful auto/boat/house. The 55-foot-long “vehicle” has a much-larger-than-life automobile as its base, which is topped by a boat’s prow, helm and afterdeck, and is ultimately capped by a two-story home with garden and patio. A helicopter-like rotor spins above the home, and special effects smoke come from the home’s chimney – all accented by amplified music. The gigantic wheels of the automobile are the actual wheels of the float, designed with a special drive train that allows the power from the engine to provide power to the rear wheels, and for the float drive to steer directly with the nine-foot tall front wheels.
The body of the “car/boat” is covered with whole red and white carnations, accented by fine cut red strawflower. The chrome on the vehicle is created with silverleaf, and the headlights beam with fine cut everlasting and ground lentil seed. The tires are covered with nori seaweed, with fine ground rice white walls. The walls of the house are fine ground white rice highlighted by dark gray poppy seed, the roof is covered with untreated natural cedar shingles; shutters are fine cut blue statice and the window panes are fine cut white rice. The rotor blades are covered with silverleaf, light lettuce seed and fine ground orange lentil seed. The orange tree at the front of the float features a crop of navel oranges, foliage of lemon leaves and pine tree branches; the trunk is covered with fine crushed walnut shell, and the area beneath the tree is real sod. The rear tree has foliage of white roses, phaleonopsis and orchids. The flowers dripping from the boat’s deck include roses, daisies, carnations in selections of orange, bright and light yellow, pink and hot pink.
