Panorama: My favorite album, and my favorite album cover! Gorgeous, right? Simple, clean, and badass.
Here’s a misconception we can clear up pretty quickly:
Cars’ drummer David Robinson is sometimes credited with painting the flag for the cover of the Panorama album. This Nightflight article states it, and I believe Wikipedia reported that at one time, too. Did you believe it? I did!
Well, it’s not so. David himself set the record straight in a Facebook post:
That’s pretty definitive!
And of course we know that Paul McAlpine did the rest of the photography for the record, including the very cool cover art on the back, and the lovely album sleeve.
Heck, he took a ton of great photos of the band! If you’re not familiar with his work, do a quick Google search of “paul mcalpine the cars” and prepare to be amazed!
I do have to say, David’s “obviously” in his comment above made me feel a little foolish, because I did not doubt his ability to make a painting that looked so great. Was that naive of me? My husband did a pretty decent job with the duplicate he painted for me, so I thought, “Why not?” 😉
sweetpurplejune 
Great painting! Seems everyone in your family is creative ❤ (TBH, I never heard that David painted the Panorama cover, although I, too, would have believed it. Not obvious to me that it's a photo.)
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Yeah me too and to think the internet lied. Vargas or bust not so. SPJ’s hubby can paint me a cover any day.
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I love the album because it’s dark and they took a chance, an extreme departure from the first two Cars’ releases. The record label was *not* happy… but Ric did not give a damn because after all, it wasn’t *their* statement to make, it was the bands artistic vision.
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I too assumed it was Davids magic. Paul McAlpine did excellent work for this album. It translates to The Cars vibe of Panorama! HEY!
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