SEVENTY YEARS OF BOLD:

CARRERA HITS THE ROAD TO CELEBRATE AN ICON

A coast-to-coast North American art tour, a legendary Corvette and the frames that started it all — Carrera’s 70th anniversary is anything but quiet.

OME BRANDS mark milestones with a press release. Carrera is marking its 70th anniversary with a 1979 Corvette, two spray-paint artists and seven cities. 

Launched in 1956 by Wilhelm Anger and inspired by the Carrera Panamericana — at the time, the most dangerous road race on earth — Carrera has always been a brand built on audacity. That spirit is very much alive in 2026, as the Safilo-owned label unleashes its most ambitious marketing activation to date: a rolling, city-by-city art tour that transforms a vintage Corvette into a canvas in markets across the U.S. and Canada.

The concept is as bold as the frames themselves. In each of the seven cities — one for every decade of Carrera’s history — two locally chosen artists are paired to paint opposite halves of the car, weaving together the heritage of the brand, the soul of the city and one of Carrera’s iconic vintage frames. No two stops will look alike. No two artists will tell the same story.

The tour kicks off in Miami May 2 and runs through early July, with stops in Houston, Chicago, San Diego, Vancouver, and Philadelphia, before closing in Toronto. It builds on a successful 2025 mural activation, in which Carrera partnered with local artists in four markets to create largescale street art — an effort that generated strong sales results and significant buzz among both consumers and trade partners.

For independent eyecare professionals, the timing couldn’t be better. Carrera is rolling out new colorways in its classic sun styles — the bestselling silhouettes from the ‘80s and ‘90s that have never really left — along with a limited run of full-titanium frames at a premium price point, giving practices a compelling story to tell at every level of the case.  

“It’s a driver’s story,” as Carrera puts it — and after 70 years, the brand is still very much in the driver’s seat.