This is one of César's 'Compression' sculptures, the first of which was made in 1960. On a visit to a scrap merchant in search of metal, he saw a hydraulic crushing machine in operation, and decided to experiment with it in his sculpture. The massive stacks of scrap metal made his small-scale, welded sculptures seem insignificant by comparison. César selected particular cars for crushing, mixing elements from differently coloured vehicles. In this way he could control the surface pattern and colour scheme of the piece. A 'Renault' nameplate can be seen on this sculpture.