Did you see that pear car around Tacoma? It’s on a cross-country road trip
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- The Pear Car visited Tacoma, a motorcycle with a huge pear sculpture surrounding it.
- Andrew Glubbey drove the pear from Florida to Tacoma over seven weeks.
- Follow its journey on @Glubbey on Instagram.
You might have been lucky enough to see it zooming down the freeway or making its way around Tacoma and Seattle: a bulbous green pear atop a motorcycle, complete with a wooden stem and leaf.
The News Tribune flagged down Andrew Glubbey, the driver behind “The Pear Car,” as he stopped in Tacoma on his seven-week journey across America. The 24-year-old has made unique mail boxes, benches, painted cars and huge sculptures, but this was the first time he’d made a sculpture around a motorcycle from old wood fencing and flattened beer and soda cans.
More than 18,000 people have followed his cross-country trip from Florida in the pear via Instagram (@Glubbey). Some of his videos have garnered tens of thousands of views. Glubbey was parked outside O’Malley’s Irish Pub on 6th Avenue on Tuesday afternoon when The News Tribune spotted him. He’ll be in town until Friday, before he heads out to San Diego, stopping in Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Santa Barbara on the way.
As the pear drove down North 10th Street on Wednesday, in view of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, Glubbey was trailed by three other cars, people who spotted him on the road and just had to follow him until he parked to learn what he was all about. Glubbey handed out pears from a bag he keeps inside the exoskeleton and flyers congratulating them for spotting “The Pear Car!”
“I love the shape of the pear. I love the color of the pear. I love the taste of a pear. I just love everything about pears, pretty much,” he said. “Everybody knows the shape of a pear. It’s very iconic, but it’s underrepresented. It also is just a perfect shape to go on a motorcycle. The pear just makes a whole lot of sense. I could store all my stuff around the base of the pear, and then look out through the top of the pear.”
Over the course of eight days, Glubbey built the pear sculpture from pieces of wood, part of “a fence that I chopped up into a million little pieces” and flattened aluminum cans to “fill in all the holes that were left by the wood.” The stem and leaf are also made of wood and cans. The entire pear is spray-painted a light green, with brown spots. Glubbey fastened round mirrors to each side and extended the motorcycle’s lights to peek out the back and front. There’s a door that crinkles when it opens and three train horns are affixed to the front of the vehicle.
So far Glubbey has travelled from Merritt Island, Florida through Atlanta, Chattanooga, Nashville, St. Louis and Missoula, among many other cities. He tries to take the scenic route off the interstate through neighborhoods and side roads so he doesn’t “miss out” on each city’s character.
Glubbey wears a motorcycle helmet and a rain jacket to stay dry, and covers his belongings in garbage bags to keep them dry during rainy days. Inside the pear Glubbey carries a tent, sleeping bag, blow-up air mattress, all his clothes and tools in case he breaks down along the way. He has snacks and a jug of water. Sneakers are wedged between two planks of wood. Throughout his journey, nothing’s fallen out except one of his neon green crocs.
Originally Glubbey started his national road trip on a scooter, but heard a part “pop” in Missoula, Montana as he was cruising around the mountains. After ordering a replacement that didn’t quite fit, Glubbey decided to upgrade and get a new motorcycle. Now that he gets better gas mileage, he doesn’t have to carry an extra gasoline container anymore.
Glubbey is sponsored by USA Pears, headquartered in Oregon, to take this summer journey. He’ll be filming some videos in Wenatchee this Saturday for the company. Painted on the side of the pear is his Venmo (@Glubbey) and CashApp ($Glubbey) for those who want to support him along the way.
As for people’s reactions to “The Pear Car”?
“Absolutely insane,” Glubbey said.
“When I built the pear, I did not expect the reaction that it’s been getting. It’s been awesome. So many people are following the journey online. It makes me happy that other people are liking it,” he said. “The common one is [people] just screaming out the window, ‘Pear!’ ‘It’s a pear!’ I get that a lot. Sometimes people follow me until I stop.”
Lakewood resident Skyler Ward followed Glubbey on Wednesday after spotting the pear on his way home from work. Ward said seeing The Pear Car “improved my day significantly,” and he was “ecstatic” to get a chance to meet Glubbey, as his girlfriend had been sending him videos since Glubbey left Florida.
“As soon as I saw the pear, I called her and started freaking out,” Ward said, who was FaceTiming his girlfriend so she could meet Glubbey, too. “I was chasing him down. I was blocks back, getting caught by every red light. I didn’t think I was going to catch him.”
Ward’s not the only person who’s been moved by “The Pear Car.”
One time Glubbey broke down in the mountains of Tennessee and got a ride from a cop to the gas station after he ran out of gas. (He documented the ride in the back seat on Instagram June 9, which garnered nearly 56,000 views.) During a rainstorm in Sturgis, South Dakota (home of the largest motorcycle rally in the world), bar owners let him sleep in the back of the bar so he didn’t have to pitch his tent.
“It was really awesome,” Glubbey said. “It’s kind of funny, the reaction from the leather jacket Harley people. They love [The Pear Car], which is kind of insane. I know that’s a hard group to impress.”
Glubbey said his journey across the country has introduced him to many different types of people and the vast beauty of the United States.
“I feel way more American now than I did before I left, for sure,” he said. “I love this country, and I think a lot of times the news only talks about all the bad stuff, and the politics and whatever. But I really think that it’s such a gorgeous country. The nature, the people are awesome, and just taking a road trip like this makes me happy to be in this country.”
Glubbey said everyone he’s met, from the Midwest to the South, has been helpful, hospitable and kind.
“Overall,” he said. “You know, you’ve got the bad apples. Or the bad pears.”
Glubbey plans to continue his journey until the fall, when the weather gets colder again. As for what comes next? He plans to build a pear-shaped “Pear BNB” in Mississippi, complete with a pear-shaped bed, a pear-shaped sink and even a “pear chandelier coming off the ceiling.”
