PRESS RELEASE: Preorder the “Dazzling” Photobook Vochos Unidos Highlighting VW Beetles across Mexico
Rodrigo Gaya Villar presents a 300-page automotive travelogue examining the identity of a country and its people, available with commemorative Vochos pins specially designed by Leen Customs.
LONG BEACH, Calif., March 9, 2026 — Preorders are open now for the automotive photobook Vochos Unidos by photographer Rodrigo Gaya Villar, a 300-page collection of his travels through Mexico chasing the country’s ubiquitous and distinctive Volkswagen Beetles. Called “dazzling” and “a gorgeously affectionate portrait,” the book is a collection of Gaya’s vibrant view of vochos as they’ve never been shown. Preorders are open now, exclusively on CarraraBooks.com
Vochos Unidos by Rodrigo Gaya Villar chases Beetles, or vochos, across the country, introducing readers to vibrant people and locations throughout Mexico. Their vochos reveal a zest for life and enduring spirit that help us better understand the fabric of a national identity. Gaya spent five years living in Mexico City and pursuing these vehicles, in hopes of better understanding his own cultural background. The result is an automotive coffee table book unlike any other.
Both a Standard Edition and 500-unit Limited Edition are available. Accompanied by short essays written in both Spanish and English, Vochos Unidos invites you to immerse yourself in this distinctive take on an iconic car. Published by Carrara Media.
Two editions of Vochos Unidos are available now to preorder:
The Standard Edition ($54.99), a premium hardcover book with over 300 pages of stunning photography. Available to bundle with a specially-designed enamel pin depicting a vocho from the book made by Leen Customs ($69.99).
The Limited Edition ($124.99), a collector’s item signed by the author with 500 copies produced that comes in an exclusive cloth slipcase, packaged with a Limited Edition-only Leen Customs pin.
"I wanted to make an anthropological study of a country, its people, and the car that has become its mascot," Gaya Villar said.
Vochos Unidos is lovingly designed and produced in Mexico, printed with natively-sourced and processed paper for a unique texture and style. It comes in formidable 9.0x11.5 sizing, with a stamped hardcover intended to immediately invoke feelings of mystery and festiveness.
“This is a book about Volkswagen Beetles as only Mexico can do,” said Ryan ZumMallen, founder of Carrara Media. “Vochos Unidos challenges our preconceptions about what an automotive coffee table book should be, and asks that we look deeper into the meaning of car culture to an entire nation.”
Promotion for Vochos Unidos will include multiple events, photo galleries and in-store appearances in the U.S. and Mexico. Stay tuned for more information to come.
ABOUT RODRIGO GAYA VILLAR:
Rodrigo Gaya Villar is a freelance photographer and director residing in South Florida focused on creating authentic lifestyle imagery. His work is influenced by travels and experiences throughout the world, especially his recent time spent in Mexico. He has developed a keen eye for capturing people in their natural surroundings and enjoys sharing the stories of those he photographs. Vochos Unidos is his first book.
ABOUT CARRARA MEDIA:
Founded in 2019, Carrara Media is an automotive book publisher featuring fiction, nonfiction and coffee table books from innovative writers and photographers. Home to bestsellers like Cult of GT-R and We Deserve This, plus recent releases Waiting for the Sun to Come Down and The Prototype Trilogy, its titles are carried in the Petersen Automotive Museum and other car culture hotspots across the country. Learn more at CarraraBooks.com.
PRAISE FOR VOCHOS UNIDOS:
"Through the author’s creative, patient eye for composition and moment, the beloved Volkswagen Beetle chug-chugs into our hearts as a resilient, iconic symbol of Mexican pop culture and street life. Patched with ingenuity, painted in rebellion, parked in the middle of life, these vochos persevere as vessels of Mexican memory and mischief. Gaya Villar is a rare talent capable of merging the rawness of documentary photography with the art of portraiture. We are willing and enchanted passengers on his visual road trip through not only Mexico, but the unstoppable human spirit." — Patrick Farrell, Pulitzer Prize Winner for Breaking News Photography, 2009.
"The Volkswagen Beetle is such an iconic car and I can't think of a better place to photograph them than their natural habitat. Gaya seamlessly incorporates each vehicle and tells a story with each photo. It's not always about the car, which makes Vochos Unidos so warm and relatable. I'm proud to have this book on my coffee table." — Larry Chen, author of Life At Shutter Speed.
"By seamlessly blending playful punch-buggy car-spotting with stunningly framed street photography, Rodrigo Gaya Villar vividly demonstrates that ‘car culture’ simply is culture. His eye for dusty old beaters and tucked-away alleys highlights what other artists might ignore, and his work feels fresh and novel even with the iconic sillhouette of the vocho as its uniting theme. Far more than a book of automotive photography, Vochos Unidos is a gorgeously affectionate portrait of both the Beetle and Mexico." — Victoria Scott, author of We Deserve This.
"Through a camera and his creative eye, Rodrigo Gaya Villar investigates Volkswagen Beetles known as vochos from every imaginable perspective. In the process, he shows us joy, freedom, strife, and the pulse of megacity living. Across hundreds of beautiful photographs of this automotive icon, Vochos Unidos depicts humanity itself." — Kevin McCauley, author of Waiting for the Sun to Come Down.
"Vochos Unidos is a dazzling, street‑level tour of Mexico’s towns and cities, with the country’s ubiquitous Volkswagen Bug at its center. Gaya Villar roams Mexico’s regions, spotting these vochos everywhere from the back alleys of Mexico City to the sandy shores of Oaxaca. The book is a visually poetic love letter to his homeland and its favorite, adopted child." — Oliver Wang, author of Cruising J-Town and Professor of Sociology at California State University, Long Beach.