-- The baddest, most brilliant Trans-Am ever rolls into the National Gallery of Canada --

“It crawled along the boulevard, with two wheels on the grass, that old Trans Am was dying hard, but still had lots of gas.”

So wrote Neil Young in his song Trans-Am, from 1994, just a few months after the National Gallery of Canada acquired a Trans-Am of its own, and one most lyrical.

It’s called Apocalypse Trans-Am 2, by the Toronto artist John Scott, and it’s on display at the gallery for the first time in more than four years. I happened upon it in the contemporary galleries on Canada Day, while strolling with an artist friend, and it was a revelation. Literally.

The entire exterior of the car is covered in the text of the Book of Revelation, every fire-and-brimstone word of it scratched into the paint in letters about an inch high. Only on the back license plate area are the letters larger: “Ex Nihil,” it says in Latin, or “out of nothing.” Indeed.