WEST COAST ARTISTS have long had a blasphemous bent, and now their hands have fallen on the greatest of American deities--the automobile. With the car as their new vehicle of self-expression, several young artists have lampooned America's machismo machine--and the society which created it--in the spirit of Pop art.

"People take their cars too seriously," says Tom Sewell, one of the young auto-artists. And iconoclasts like Sewell appear to have embarked on a campaign to educate the public against doing just that. "I want people to learn," says Steven Paige, the creator of the "The Dickmobile," a car that looks like a six-foot long penis. "People should loosen up," says Sewell, who designed "The Picklecar." "I want to open up people's minds to new channels of communications." Sewell puts the argument succintly when he says. "Why shouldn't you drive a piece of art?"

Like most pieces of art, either driven or stationary, the new cars have provoked a great deal of discussion. Paige's phallic "Dickmobile" is perhaps the most controversial. Built on a 1954 Hillman Minx chassis, the head of "The Dickmobile" is 18 gauge steel stretched over a pencil wire frame, while the body of the car is molded fiberglass. The entire vehicle is painted in various shades of pink, except the purple exhaust columns that run along the sides, and the rear of the car that is painted a pubic hair black. The plush interior of the car is upholstered in tufted black naugahyde and has a rosewood dashboard and paneling.

The reaction of most drivers and pedestrians to "The Dickmobile" is one of bewildered amusement. "People don't know what to think," Paige says, "but most begin to laugh and make jokes."

One group that hasn't found "The Dickmobile" particularly funny is the Los Angeles Police Department. Although the Dickmobile is licensed by the state, the L.A. police have stopped Paige no fewer than eight times in the past year "to check it for safety." "I think the reason the police stop me," Paige says, "is because 'The Dickmobile' is a symbol more powerful than the symbol of the police car."

Once when Paige was cruising down L.A.'s prestigious Wilshire Boulevard, he was stopped by two policemen who admonished him for driving an obscene vehicle. The officers were particularly worried because of the large number of elderly residents in the area. "The police were afraid they might have heart attacks if they saw 'The Dickmobile,'" Paige said. One 70-year-old man who happened by proved them wrong. "Do you know what that is?" the old man queried as he broke into a fit of laughter. "It's the greatest thing I've ever seen."

THE ADMIRERS of "The Dickmobile" haven't all been oldsters. On Sunset Strip one evening, Paige was approached by a buxom young woman who jumped on "The Dickmobile's" hood and demanded that her picture be taken with the car.

"The Dickmobile" hasn't been well received by establishment auto customizers, however. George Barris, who designed the Oscar Mayer Weiner Wagon and the STP Lemon Car, says Paige's car is "nutty." As for his own business. Barris says, "We try to keep our stuff on the socially acceptable level."

Paige tried to enter "The Dickmobile" in last year's "Concourse D'Elegance," a fashionable Los Angeles auto show, but was refused admission by the exhibit's officials. Undaunted, he bribed several guards at the show, and placed "The Dickmobile" right next to the Rolls Royce exhibit. The car received polite stares.

"I built the car as a kind of practical joke," he explains, "but it wasn't very practical because now I don't know what to do with it."

THE JOKE cost Paige quite a bit of effort. A year and a half ago Paige--then a 22-year-old disaffected drop-out from San Fernando Valley State College--went to McKinleyville, a tiny village in Northern California, to get away from it all. "But then I just got the idea that I should build 'The Dickmobile'," Paige says. Although the car is made largely from what he terms "junk," it took him seven months to build. After finishing the car, Paige drove it to Los Angeles because, he says, "this is where 'The Dickmobile' belongs."

Paige doesn't know exactly what price to put on "The Dickmobile," although he was once offered an expensive Maserati in trade. But right now he is looking for someone who "will do something with it," although he isn't certain exactly what that "something" is.

Presently supporting himself as a handy man, Paige considers himself a "folk artist." He eventually wants to go into bio-design because, he says. "I want more freedom to control those things that are controlling me."

Another California artist who sees cars as art is Tom Sewell. Sewell's "Picklecar" looks like a cross between a giant cucumber and a stray automobile. Actually "The Picklecar" is a 1950 Studebaker that has been sprayed with polyurethane foam, and painted a loud and ugly shade of green. "The Picklecar" is bizarre to the point of being offensive, and indeed, the Los Angeles Police impounded the car after someone complained about it being parked in front of their house.

"When people see 'The Picklecar'," says Sewell, "they don't know whether to laugh, scream, or run for cover." However, some children have attacked the car and tried to break off bits of the polyurethane.