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Mar
24
A friend of mine always says that “you can hotrod everything”. He definitely has a point there, even though many people might scream SACRILEGE in this case. Yes, you could do this to a vintage Bugatti Type 51 racecar – but it wouldn’t really make sense in reality. But hey, a picture is made up from pixels. Some of those pixels have just been altered and tweaked a little.
Disclaimer: No actual car has been harmed during the creation of this picture. 😉
Mar
03
The Renault R4 has always been a vehicle that accepts many modifications to the body without looking too weird. I kept it simple by just removing the rear doors and windows, lowering the ride height and adding larger diameter wheels. Just a quick chop over the weekend for fun. Peace 🙂
Feb
26
Oh yes – it’s another one of those pocket rockets from the 1980’s. The Mitsubishi Mirage, or Colt as it was called in other markets, could have been a lot of fun. Unfortunately Mitsubishi never made a hot hatch version of it to compete with the likes of the Volkswagen Golf GTI, Peugeot 205 GTI, Renault 5 and many others in that league. All you need to do is inserting a turbocharged engine of your choice, adding a set of adjustable coilovers and a nice set of polished Starion wheels and you’re done. No need to shed a lot of weight, because these cars have always been featherlight (unless all the small cars of today).
Feb
24
Straight lines. A low belt-line. Rear lights that span the entire width of the body. Chances have always been high that I like a car with those key design elements. The Opel Senator A and Monza are such cars. The no-nonsense approach the designers choose back then created a couple of timeless classics, in my opinion. Cars with such a clean design don’t need much to really stand out and shine. A little tweak here and a little shave there, a set of period correct wheels and you’re done. In this case, I utilized wheels from a Pontiac Firebird Trans Am and even kept the gold centers in order to add a bit of color to the otherwise rather monochromatic vehicle.
Feb
03
With the recent closing of Bruce Weiners’ Microcar Museum, many pictures of before unseen (micro)cars have been posted on various websites. I found a picture of the 1955 Fuji Cabin online and spontaneously thought its’ overall shape just begs for being hot-rodded! It took many modifications, though – and might be next to impossible to realize in 1:1 scale. But hey, that’s part of the fun, isn’t it? I imagine it to be powered by a Honda S800 four cylinder engine, mounted in the traditional north-south configuration with rear wheel drive. The frame would quite possibly need to be custom made. Axles and other bits and pieces could either come from the same Honda or one of those tiny British roadsters of the sixties…
Dec
08
Finding the original picture inspired me to create a picture that could have been taken like that back then. The Chevrolet Malibu SS Hardtop Coupé is a car with rather subdued styling. I wanted to keep the original lines and just modified them a little bit.
Nov
25
Even though I’m not a huge fan of front wheel drive cars in general, I do appreciate some of them. Especially when a four wheel drive option was available. The first and second generation of the Mitsubishi Eclipse are good examples of such cars. Nice to look at and fun to drive. We’ll just ignore the rather ugly third generation for the time being. Concerning the picture I didn’t really modify a lot, apart from enhancing the looks of the original Japan-spec body kit and adding a set of nice wheels. Can you spot the other changes?
Nov
11
Yeah! As long as I can think I loved the third generation of the Chevrolet Corvette. This vehicle doesn’t need much tinkering to look awesome. Lower, larger diameter wheels, some touch-ups… done.
Nov
09
Ever since seeing a Tucker Torpedo in the Murdo (South Dakota) Pioneer Auto Museum in 2001, I’ve been fascinated with the vehicle. Many years later, somebody gave me a DVD with the video about the brilliant man named Preston Tucker. He thought about many features, like rollover protection and directional lights, decades before anybody else – and realized them. Most of them far too advanced for the time, though. Mind you, we’re talking about 1948!
The sleek design inspired me to create a modernized version of the Tucker Torpedo, while retaining the key elements of the design. Yes, HotWheels models did play an influential role here…
Nov
07
The 1957 Chevrolet has always been a favorite amongst fans of the 50’s fins and chrome era. Especially the rare Nomad wagon is heavily sought after these days. Not many people would dare to weld the windows shut on such an iconic vehicle. But hey… we’re not talking about reality. Real world rules don’t apply to the world of photo manipulation, where deleting a couple of layers from your photoshop file restores the car to its original shape and value. Just imagine what it would be like to actually do it and drive it to a car show. Now… would you do it?
Nov
01
A picture of the John Fitch owned classic Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing Coupé in Bonneville inspired me to turn the new SLS AMG Gullwing into a record seeking machine. I kept the looks rather close to the original 300SL Bonneville, but gave it an updated and more modern feel by using a different font for the lettering. This vehicle could be real – and provided having the money, I’d actually go for it and have some fun with it at the salt lake flats…
If the marking F/GT is not correct for a new car like the SLS, please let me know what would be suitable. Thank you in advance.
Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Bonneville Special | photoshop chop © Sebastian Motsch (2012)
Mercedes-Benz 300SL Bonneville | reference picture
A Mercedes 300SL Gullwing at Bonneville from Roamic on Vimeo.
Oct
02
It seems like I can’t stay away from modifying Citroën Ami pictures. Every now and then somebody sends me a picture of an Ami, asking if I could do “my magic” with it. So here it goes, the 7th iteration of the same idea. Oh, and there is even a beautiful French model on the hood of the (weird as always) vehicle. 🙂
Sep
23
The FIAT based Abarth 750 GT by Zagato features the typical double-bubble roof. Rather diminutive in size, it packs a lot of power per kilogram in original guise. Imagine a Porsche flat six with a set of turbochargers in it and… you should be scared as hell by the power-to-weight ratio! Due to fitment issues, this fortunately isn’t possible in reality. Otherwise you would definitely need to register it as a weapon at your local DMV. 😉
Sep
12
The Volvo VN series heavy duty trucks are slick machines, but I never really liked the front bumper. Somehow it just doesn’t go well with the overall appearance of the truck. In order to change that, I modified a picture of a sparkling blue VN with a polished trailer found in the internet. The usual lowering was a must on the semi truck and I also lowered the trailer to go with it. Larger wheels look the part and the more voluminous bumper enhances the appearance. The side skirts are smoothed and entering the truck without scratching the paint sure is a challenge now 😉
A set of graphics and black chrome trim add the final touch.
Sep
02
The Volkswagen T1 ViteCrete Dragster is a five minute chop, just for fun. Inspired by the recent visit to the Nitrolymp’x and the dump truck I created yesterday.
Sep
02
Sometimes, when browsing for pictures of interesting cars, something else pops up that inspires me. This time around it was a picture of an ordinary Freightliner Business Class M2 dump truck. Yes, even such basic machinery has lots of potential for more. Many parts have been altered, but I tried to keep the look subtle enough to be convincing. Would it still be drivable on a construction site? Maybe not… but it would look good trying, for sure. 😉
Aug
27
Ferrari 412i 2+2 Shooting Break Concept
Ferrari / Photoshop Chops / Pininfarina / Shooting Brake / Shooting Break Posted by Sebastian Motsch
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Frequent readers of my blog know that I do have a sweet spot for two-door wagons. Whether they are called shooting break or shooting brake is an entirely different story. I decided to call them shooting break, because some (European) manufacturers call their regular station wagons Break.
The Ferrari 412i 2+2 is a very nice base for a shooting break conversion. Straight lines would make it easy to perform this task in real life. Though I doubt that anybody would actually so that. Most people would probably just run away and scream bloody murder!
Aug
24
The design of the Citroën BX is actually based on the Volvo Tundra Concept by Bertone. Volvo rejected the design and Bertone recycled it when developing the BX for Citroën. The BX is an interesting car, but a little bland. The image of a base level BX driving on a typical French alley inspired me to give the car a much cleaner and more futuristic look. Would’ve been cool if they had actually built it like that, wouldn’t it?
Aug
22
Oui messieurs! Yet another one of those magic (and rather weird) vehicles from Citroën. Nobody ever figured out what the French engineers might have been smoking back then. 😉
Aug
20
There a some vehicles that don’t need a lot of modifications to look the part. The fifth generation of the Cadillac Seville is one of those vehicles. Looking rather bland in stock form, the appearance definitely changes when lowered over larger wheels and with a blacked-out grille. Named Seville STS-V the picture takes a look at what could have been, had the STS-V moniker already been invented back then.
Aug
15
Visiting the 2012 Nitrolymp’x at the Hockenheimring last weekend inspired me to create a couple of dragsters with photoshop. And because mainstream isn’t really my cup of tea, I used a couple of rather unlikely cars as a base: the Aston Martin Lagonda Limousine and the Talbot Lago T23 Teardrop Coupé by Figoni & Falaschi. Chances of seeing this conversion done in reality? Probably next to nothing 😉
Aug
06
Strive for perfection in everything you do.
Take the best that exists and make it better.
When it does not exist, design it.
Sir Henry Royce (1863 – 1933)
Well, sir. A Rolls-Royce EX101 with gullwing doors just didn’t exist yet. So… I designed it.