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Mar
30
Citroën has built many cars that have been well ahead of the game. However, they never built a CX Shooting Break with gullwing doors. But hey, they could have – and nobody would have been surprised at all. 😉
Dec
30
The inspiration to photoshop a Chrysler Voyager Mk1 came from reading Brock Yates‘ book The Critical Path. The old one-box design minivans have a lot of potential for customizing, in my opinion. I tried to keep it in an 80’s style, but the stance is definitely a more contemporary approach…
Dec
01
A true classic with a classic custom car touch. Not much done here, because it doesn’t need much to make that particular car look stunning. The body has been lowered, cleaned and received a pinstriping, which spans the whole flank. And yes – the Mercury Park Lane Sedan is a rather large vehicle.
Nov
21
An instant classic. The SAAB 900 Turbo has always had it friends and foes. I always liked them because they are a bit weird – but very well engineered. This shape doesn’t need a lot of tweaking, so I reworked the body carefully. The fenders have been flared a little, the door handles shaved and some of the trim removed. A healthy drop over enlarged wheels, a front spoiler and that’s about it. Not much drama for a rather subtle effect. Like it or don’t 😉
Nov
14
A T5-R engine? Really? In a classic Volvo 780 Bertone Coupé? You must be kidding!
But hey… why not? The T5-R engine swap might be a little complicated in reality, I agree. Imagination is free and to me it’s fun to think outside the box. I kept the classic, straight lines and just modded a few details to achieve a look that is subtle, yet a tad more aggressive. Wouldn’t hurt to have a couple more ponies under that hood, though.
Oct
15
Winter is just around the corner – better be prepared in style.
The Lincoln Indianapolis Boano Coupé concept car inspired me to create a vehicle suitable for the snowy season. The shape of the car didn’t need much tweaking. A healthy top chop, the running gear of a Ski-Doo snowmobile and a few minor tweaks is all it needed to look the part. It could even be quite functional.
Aug
30
Bruno Sacco created his masterpiece for Mercedes-Benz: the C126 S-Class Coupé. One shouldn’t really mess with such an iconic design. Hence, I only changed very subtle things. The vehicle has been lowered over a set of multi-piece wheels with central locks*. The window trim has been color coded to match the body. The fenders have been widened ever so slightly and the door handles have been shaved. It still has an OE feel to it – but the appearance and attitude changed dramatically.
Aug
04
Asüna? What the hell is Asüna, I asked myself upon stumbling across a picture of their Sunfire car. A quick search reveiled, that GM Canada sold (rebadged) Isuzus under the name of Asüna from 1991 to 1995. The Sunfire is actually based on the Geo Storm, which in turn actually was an Isuzu Gemini/Impulse. Confusing?
However, getting rid of the Geos’ pop-up headlights actually improved the overall look of the car. I further enhanced the shape of the car to give it a more substantial and more serious, if not beefy, look. A set of deep concave wheels, a healthy drop of the suspension and hey… it doesn’t look that bad now, does it?
Aug
04
Just a few subtle changes added to the Mitsubishi Lancer 2000 Turbo. Lowered with a set of coil-overs, mounted set of larger wheels and grafted on fender flares and an extension to the factory body-kit. I then converted the picture to grey-scale, because I didn’t like the colors in the reference picture.
Jul
29
Regular visitors know that I do like two-door station wagons, aka Shooting Breaks. The UF31 Nissan Leopard responds nicely to the wagon treatment. A set of shorter springs and some multi-piece BBS wheels do alter the character a little and make the Leopard look sportier. Would be nice to have, wouldn’t it?
Jul
23
The Alfa Romeo 164 is a typical car of the late eighties, with straight lines that seem to stretch the body. Unfortunately Alfa Romeo never built a two-door coupé version of this beautiful car. To create the coupé I got rid of the rear doors, moved the B-pillar backwards, chopped the top and reshaped the C-pillar. The lower suspension and a set of larger diameter wheels completely create a more serious attitude.
Jun
11
A couple of weeks ago I found the picture of a Honda N600 that has been converted to a pick-up truck. The car in the picture is in a very sorry shape, so I decided to create a properly executed photoshop chop of how it could look like in reality. Wouldn’t be that hard to fabricate one, actually. Or as the slogan goes: Honda – The Power of Dreams.
May
12
The colorful custom vans of the 1970’s and 80’s have always been an inspirational source for me. Especially the Chevrolet G20 / GMC Vandura vans are amongst my favorite body styles. In this case I used a Vandura Rally STX as a base, deleted the windows and added colorful graphics to the side panels. The van has also been lowered and a set of period-correct custom wheels have been added. The boat on the trailer has been color-matched and the GMC logo color-coded. A rather simple conversion, but it has all the vibe it needs, doesn’t it?
Apr
10
Sometimes a random memory sparks something. In this case I remembered, for some reason or another, that my French teacher once used to drive a very un-cool dark blue Volkswagen Santana Mk1. I searched the web for a suitable picture to use as a base – and got carried away… again.
This project evolved to be a custom Santana which a surfer might drive. The body is essentially stock, but a roof-rack with a surfboard has been added. The car was then lowered over a set of vintage Corvette wheels with tires sporting red stripes. A couple of surf-related stickers, a few details here and there and it was finished. Point proven, even a VW Santana has potential to look (somewhat) cool. 😉
Apr
09
Many crossover models came to the market in the last couple of years. Most of them just adding some plastic cladding to a regular wagon for that “offroad feeling” – but missing the underpinnings to actually go offroad without getting stuck. Just imagine what a cool old-school wagon on a rugged base with solid axles could have looked like back then, when cars where still properly designed by engineers. It could have looked like that: grafting a Nissan Bluebird Wagon body to a Datsun 4WD pick-up chassis. OK, it wouldn’t really be that easy in reality, due to the FWD architecture of the U11 Bluebird. But hey… what if? 😉
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.