Gallup unveils Route 66 jackrabbit sculpture made from car parts

Robert Wilson’s giant jackrabbit sculpture, Run, gave Gallup a fresh landmark on Route 66 as the city leaned into its centennial spotlight with a piece of public art made from car parts, not poured concrete.

Wilson, a retired doctor who left medicine in 2016 to work on art full time, built the sculpture in his recycled-art style from parts of a 1953 Chevy Bel Air. The finished piece stands about 10 feet tall, stretches 12 feet wide and weighs more than 1,200 pounds. One of its most eye-catching details is a speedometer used as the left eye, with the needle fixed at 66 mph, a nod to the Mother Road.

Wilson said the idea came from seeing jackrabbits on the West Mesa, where the animals seemed to fit the long, open landscape that has always shaped travel through this corner of New Mexico. He said the project pushed him into unfamiliar territory because he had never used a plasma torch before and had never torn down a car before building Run. After more than a year of work, the result is both sculpture and roadside attraction, a steel-and-chrome animal that turns discarded material into something built to be seen from the road.

The unveiling was listed for April 17, 2026, at We The People Park in Gallup, with a documentary screening the same day at 12:30 p.m. at the historic El Morro Theatre. The sculpture’s listed address is 900 JM Montoya Blvd., placing it squarely in the city’s Route 66 corridor.

For Gallup and McKinley County, Run arrives at a moment when local leaders and community groups are already building around Route 66 Centennial events for 2026. Visit Gallup says the city and community have planned a slate of centennial activities, and the county has highlighted the new Route 66 art installation as part of the 100th anniversary celebration of the Mother Road. Route 66 was paved through Gallup in 1934, giving the city a long history of turning highway traffic into civic identity.

Roadside America has placed Run within Gallup’s wider collection of offbeat attractions, but the sculpture’s bigger value may be closer to home. It gives residents another symbol of local creativity and gives drivers another reason to slow down, pull over and spend time, and maybe money, in a city that has spent generations defining itself by the road that runs through it.