A few years back in Brisbane – I believe it was after the frangipani window sticker craze ended, but before people started putting the stick-figure families on their cars – it was very popular to see subcompacts bedecked with tape stripes. Now, I’m not talking about actual hot hatches like the Volkswagen Polo GTi or Ford Fiesta XR4. Instead, dual racing stripes were affixed to base model Holden Barinas (Chevy Aveos) and Toyota Yaris hatches and sedans. These additions were popular with young, female buyers, one of the key demographics of such entry-level cars.
It always seemed a little silly but each to their own. I was reminded of this defunct trend when I saw Eric Clem’s photo while browsing the Cohort. Not only is it a tad daft to put racy tape stripes on a humdrum Aveo sedan, but affixing those of one of the Chrysler Corporation’s most famous muscle cars on a GM product screams sacrilege. Why not some SS stripes instead? It would make more sense and, besides, Chevy already stuck the SS name on products very nearly as undeserving…
What’s the most baffling, amusing, inappropriate or most foolish car modification you have seen?
I don’t know, an Aveo with a Super Bee stripe is gonna be pretty hard to beat!
Saw this ridiculous Jeep parked…..in my driveway.
Yup I’m a Smokey and The Bandit fan
The flaming bird reminds me of the one who was set on the hood of a 1978-1980 Oldsmobile Cutlass for a scene of the 1990 French-Canadian movie “Ding & Dong, le film”.
I once saw a young punk while driving around. He had a BMW badge on the front of his car to make everyone seem like it was a Beemer. The car in question? A sixth generation Pontiac Grand Prix in poor condition. Yeah, he wasn’t fooling anybody.
Did any US Granada owners use a Mercedes emblem? That also would be worthy of derision.
A Nissan bearing a Toyota ovals logo in back is one of the most puzzling False Flags I’ve seen.
The Mercedes owner called, he wants his emblem back.
The factory modification of sticking trunks to compact hatchbacks with sloping shoulder lines. Inevitably you’ll end up with a certified clown car. Like that Aveo in the picture, even without the Super Bee-sticker. The one below is maybe even worse.
+1
I can count the number of Fiesta Titanium sedans I’ve seen on one hand. Pre-facelift they were mostly strippers (you had to go up to an SE and pay extra on top of that to get a hatchback); post-facelift they seem to all be SEs with the telltale rental-car barcode stickers.
I despise the Fiesta sedan’s styling as well. Dishonorable mention to the Kia Rio sedan. Back around 2012, I actually remember being impressed by how the top-trim SX (which barely exists in the real world) looked in doctored press photos – then I saw a base model on the road. Those proportions are disgusting!
If the trend continues they will become a station wagon with a sunroof for the cargo area!
Painting vehicles which aren’t anything like a Dodge Charger to resemble the General Lee would be pretty high on my list.
…and painting non Ford Torinos with Starsky and Hutch-type white saddle stripes.
Not quite as distinctive, and there was a very similar stripe available from the factory for the 1973 Plymouth Road Runner.
http://www.muskie-lures.com/73roadrunner/index1.htm
From 1970 through 1974, Chrysler had the widest and most varied selection of tape stripes for what would end up being the swan-song for the last, true musclecars for many decades.
What’s fascinating is that the tape stripe clones didn’t really take off until the Starsky and Hutch show became a hit. Suddenly, everyone and his brother had the Torino saddle-stripes on whatever lame-mobile they were driving (and this includes 4-door sedans a half century before they ruled the performance car scene). At least Chrysler’s tape stripe cars were better integrated and more tasteful. The S and H Torino stripe just looked like a bad body shop job (which was pretty much what it was).
One of the early CCs was an S&H MkI Fiesta. To me, it wore the stripe SO much better than a Gran Torino – the two-box shape and slim C-pillar carried the stripe all the way to the rear of the car and constrained the vertical width.
Dave Starsky should’ve upgraded from the ’74 Torino to a new Fiesta for the 1977-78 season.
(Paul, is there a secret sauce for posting a pic that’s already on CC without saving it to my computer and re-uploading it?)
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/CC-26-010-800.jpg
Like you say, that really suits the car.
Starsky & Hutch non Torinos come pretty close. Plenty Marinas & other dross painted like that in 70s & 80s Britain.
Starsky & Hutch Marina! LOL! Never saw one done up like that.
One General Lee Cortina MkIV and seemingly hundreds of A-Team Bedford CFs though.
Lol, I’ve seen a General Lee MkIV Cortina too…
You’re lucky, it lived round the corner from me!
The thing with the General Lee is I liked watching Dukes IN SPITE OF the stupid paintjob the Charger had, it was an otherwise good looking car doing cool stunts. So People painting actual Dodge Chargers to resemble the General Lee is high on my list!
There was a lifted C10 running around here a few years ago with the full general paintjob, rebel flag on the hood instead of the roof though. Odd sight in the Chicago suburbs.
Agreed. I only saw it at a friends place (I had no TV) but those stunts were terrific. Could have been any car, and that still would have been cool driving.
In the 1980’s everyone was slapping cheap chrome ‘ TURBO ” badges on grungy , rusty and dented Barrio Bombers .
-Nate
I remember seeing them for sale. Kinda tempting, but I really wanted a Cartier badge to slap on my base Cortina.
One could literally mention any episode of Pimp My Ride, but one in particular I recall was of this NS-generation Chrysler minivan. Just no.
ridiculous: Spinner wheel covers, adjustable deck spoilers on anything, 20″ wheels on regular cars.
Spoilers below the rear windows of hatch back models.
funny: rubber duck as grille ornament on a Citroen 2CV. In Germany it is known as “lahme Ente” or “lame duck”.
Spoilers below back window on a hatchback were used to keep that window clean.
I once saw a Neon Batmobile – a black 4-door Neon sedan with the yellow oval bat logo on hood and front doors. Completely stock otherwise. That “Super Bee” looks almost logical in comparison 🙂
A guy that used to live in my neighborhood bought a beautiful black 2015 Mustang V6 and put a huge Batman emblem on the hood, and chrome Batman emblems on the C pillars. On the back he had some stickers, one of which said “Why so serious?”, to which my granddaughter commented was a “Joker” reference… Ok… Anyway, epic fail. The car’s look was ruined IMHO.
I’d almost be willing to give a pass to any Batmobile-clone, so long as it had a matching flat-black paint job. Almost…
Not sure if this counts, but using a plastic jar as a turn signal lense has to be up there.
What you have is a practical fix to a real problem, much like using house gutter to fix the exhaust system on your pickup.
Had the plastic jar (or a series of them) been used to create, say, a moonroof, then you have something in a different realm.
+1
At different times I’ve used the chromed metal pipe from a vacuum cleaner hose and a soup can and some wormgear clamps to repair exhaust systems. The pictured plastic jar lens isn’t supposed to be a performance or appearance “enhancement”, just backyard engineering using the materials at hand.
This plastic jar repair tells a far deeper story. Something along the lines of having to miss work again because the kids were sick again and the washing machine broke last week right after the muffler fell off and you have to shut the water off under the toilet after you use it or it will run. Poverty sucks.
Povery sucks badly , they try to tell me ‘ yes but it BUILDS CHARACTER ‘ .
=8-^ .
-Nate
Yeah, the plastic jug turn signal lens held in with caulking compound falls into the same category as ‘improvise and simulate’ with bailing wire and duct tape just to remain mobile. That actually serves a functional purpose and not aesthetics.
OTOH, using duct tape of a bright color for nothing more than a side-stripe would definitely qualify as ridiculous.
The right color duct tape could hide that caulking well.
Translation from Russian: You can’t beat this country, ever!
I saw a late-model Corolla the other day with “IS 150” on the trunk lid. That’s the only thing that comes to mind of late.
I won’t have it, that one’s hillarious.
The most silly has to be one I saw back as a college student where a guy had a fart can on his Civic (because of course it was a Civic). What made it different was that this Civic was fitted with an automatic, a *slipping* automatic. many a laugh were had at watching it go up the steep hill leading to the campus exit.
braaaa-AAAAAAAAA-aaaaaaa-hhhhhhh-AAAAAAAAA!!!!!
That’s like 3 outta 4 fart-canned Civics here. A 4 door slushboxed beige or silver one, gifted from Aunt Edna today and treated to all the tasteful and high quality items that $120 at Auto Zone can buy. Hey, nothing but the best…and when he gets that cold air exhaust installed he’ll be blowing away Mustang Cobras like its going outta style!
Like a flea farting into a slide trombone!
bwahahahahaha!
In the late ’90s I had been visited an american car owners meeting somewhere in Central-Eastern Europe with a 1990 Pontiac Le_Mans LE 4 door sedan. Some group of 4 teenage boys (visitors without cars) had started to harshly criticize my Le_Mans that IT’S a FAKE and that I arbitrarily renamed an Opel Kadett-E to Pontiac… Because of that reason I had to leave the meeting (they said)!!! Hahahh… This means that some factory made badge engineered models could create heavy confusions among the folks where the privately imported foreign cars are so rare. What whould they say about a Saturn Astra in an environment where tonns of the Opel Astra-H is appearing on every step, in every minute…
…as well as the privately imported (rare) Pontiac Firefly/Geo Metro/Chevrolet Sprint models could raise eyebrows where the locally well known daily driver Suzuki Swift appears on every step and every minute…
In my old neighborhood in Brooklyn nearly every single car, truck, van or SUV was sporting those tacky plastic stick-on fender vents. I’ve even seen a few newer vehicles, which actually came from the factory with some form of chrome-accented vent/trim piece between the front wheel well and door adorned with EXTRA stick-on aftermarket “vents” just for good measure. After the spring thaw they’ll be littering the streets again, and I’m sure by the April “detailing season” everybody will be picking up a new set to stick ’em back on there. (Along with whatever THIS year’s newest $5 ghettotastic “upgrade” might be)
How about red racing stripes on a white Olds Delta 88?
The black plastic tail light louvers that were popular back around 2000.
The clear tail light lenses that were all the rage for a while, which looked really tacky on an F-150.
Any and all aftermarket vinyl roofs.
Continental kits on anything.
Those clear taillight lenses can look good, but it depends on the vehicle, and the style.
My son has some on his non-Evo ’01 Lancer. I’ve seen different styles on other Lancers of that model which look awful
I like the “Continental-Kits” and Vinyl-Roofs…but not on anything. Some 20-30 years old (sometimes rusty/dirty) 4 cylinder cars could look funny with the clear taillight lenses, sentinel kinda frontlights with drl sourced mostly from cheap chinese parts aftermarket…in addition with the oversized chromed exhaust pipe ends and loud mufflers…what they call “optical tuning”… 🙂
Does anyone recall the Rolls Royce grills placed on old Beetles? Seems like that was all the rage in the late 70’s and early 80’s. Some folks even opted for that Continental Mark look on the weirdest assortment of compact cars by putting a spare tire bump on the trunk-lid. It was just wrong.
Check this link. Pininfarina’s pimped Mercedes 300 SEL Coupé 6.3 http://www.diariomotor.com/2015/06/26/mercedes-300-sel-6-3-pininfarina-coupe/mercedes-300-sel-coupe-1/
For the Beetle, J.C. Whitney offered a fiberglass Rolls-Royce front trunk lid, as well as a ’40 Ford one, AND a “continental kit” engine cover for the rear.
I’ll never forget seeing the listing for the trunk lids in the catalog: “Improves luggage capacity!”
I had a college friend whose VW had that imitation 1940 Ford hood. I must say the added luggage capacity wasn’t the usual JC Whitney snake-oil; the Beetle needed it.
I remember people sawing a wind up key out of a half sheet of plywood and somehow bolting it onto the back of their VW Beetle so that it looked liked a life-size wind up toy car.
My father did that to his uncle’s Rabbit back in the day, except it had a plunger head so it was removable. Uncle Leroy was not amused.
I tried to edit my comment, but missed out during the time allowed.
I’m sure it increased luggage capacity, but what I found funny is that they advertised the kits as though THAT was a reason people bought them!
What I hate are those folks who insist on putting giant wings, like the type used on BTCC cars, when the car in question is some small, underpowered, bordering on anonymous sedan…..like an ancient Hyundai Accent. Yeah, I saw one of those huge wings just a few weeks ago on some battered, grey sedan.
And while it’s not all that ridiculous, today I saw another Camry or Corolla with a “cabriolet” roof treatment.
Gotta have some place to hang the shop towels to dry…..
-Nate
When they do install those giant wings and they have integrated 3rd brake lights, the owners need to disconnect the 3rd brake light in the rear window. Having both of them come on adds to the tackiness by highlighting the fact that the wing was an owner addition.
The worst application of a rear spoiler I can recall was the Tercel ‘Hawk’ series sometime ago. Although it wasn’t a huge thing, it was still the most ridiculous OEM (!) installation, ever.
The tiny lil’ yellow Aveo says: “When I’ll grow up I’ll become a Camaro”…
There is no Camaro Super Bee either…. How about, “I wish I was a Mopar!”
He can use a Dodge Colt.
A fart can muffler on a Golf diesel.
A fart can muffler on a 4-door Saturn sedan. This one was puzzling because the driver was in his mid 50’s.
You can see where this is going… a fart can muffler on pretty much anything.
Large wagon wheel bling rims with thin rubber bands and a big industrial looking trunk wing on a Toyota Echo. With a fart can muffler naturally. I really hope the owner had a wicked sense of humour and was only poking fun at the mom’s old Honda crowd.
You can really screw up the sound of your car by messing around with the exhaust. And do you really want to advertise to the whole neighbourhood every time you mess up a gear change?
If you’re afraid of the noise, you can make a fake fart can out of an old metal coffee can… 🙂
Ummm…it is possible that the Aveo’s owner was a bit confused between the Super Bee vs. the Bumble Bee??? Who knows!?
Lowered fullsize pickups. This makes even less sense than jacking them up. I see one driving around my neighbourhood occasionally. Looks weird to see an extended cab p/w with an 8′ box riding so low.
I agree. The longer the truck, the better it looks lifted. Then again, I don’t much for anything lowered, I’m just not a low rider kind of guy.
I think fullsize trucks look good lowered with single cabs and short bed or flareside beds. Crewcabs, longbeds, or both look awful, they look like beached whales.
Another key distinction too is lowered vs. slammed. Lowered makes the wheels proportioned better in the wheelwell, which generally doesn’t hurt the design(although at the expense of travel and ride), Slammed top of wheels tucked way up in the fenders, resting the frame directly on the ground. I really am perplexed as to why people think that’s a good look.
Pretty spot on. Personally, the single/short or crew/stubby combos are the trucks that are proportioned best, and lend themselves to personal use and a platform to customize. Whether you lift it in 4×4 or lower it as a 2wd those always turn heads when put together by someone with a good eye for style. Every other combo is strictly a utility vehicle to my eye, and not too well suited for customizing. Longer trucks handle worse and are slower on the street and unwieldy off road too.
I hate the slammed look with tall skinny rolling stock tucked way under the fenders too. Looks very un-muscular or like a rail car to me. Opinions being what they are, this 1st gen D-150 is representative of how Id do it:
I once turned a Geo Storm hatchback into a “BMW 316ti”. A friend had recently totaled his BMW 325e around the time that another friend sold me the Storm for a very reasonable sum. I bought it because the A/C worked. Since I wasn’t very fond of the style of it, and I was pretty confident not everyone would recognize a 14 year old car that was never common when it was new, I decided to have some fun with it. Ran it for 3 months until the timing belt snapped, at which point I took off the badges and sold it for what I’d paid for it. Fooled at least one person that I knew of.
The absolute weirdest example of a modified car I have seen. I saw this about 4 years ago in the beautiful city of Manizales in Colombia. I will later post more pictures of this wonderful example. Also, I challenge you to identify from which car were the rear light units taken. You would have to admit that at least they were well integrated.
Oh no! A Renault 4 disfigured!
…with Kalos/Aveo/Wave taillights… Anyway the Renault Badge is there…
Just looking at it from the rear, you’d be awfully confused.
I wish I had a picture of it, but when I was in college (the first time) back in the ’80’s, I remember seeing several times near the house I shared with 5 other guys, a Ford EXP with – wait for it – traction bars, a jacked up rear end, and oversized rear tires.
And yes, I was sober at least one of the times I saw that car.
Had it been converted into a rwd drag car though?
A vinyl roof on a ’84-ish Ford Escort.
I once saw a Ford ZX2 with an aftermarket vinyl roof – and that was the only vinyl roof that ever actually fooled me into thinking the car was a convertible. I mean, wouldn’t Ford have wanted to compete against masterpieces like the Sunfire convertible?
See this? This shit has gotta stop:
Miura wannabes
I thought that had stopped.
no, I saw one yesterday.
Oh dear!
Those are all over the place in Charleston. Pink Mitsubishi Eclipse convertible. A four door Jeep Wrangler. A few Chevy Tahoes and lots of vw beetles. And that’s just in my neighborhood
PT Cruisers seem to be regularly defiled by this heinous trend. I had a PT…modded correctly, theyre sharp looking cars. All too often, this is representative of what ruins the street cred of a vehicle with a lot going for it.
I don’t know why, but I always chuckle when I see these. No, I don’t usually like little additions like this and I would never put them on my car. But they’re just silly and cute and dumb.
On a slightly related matter, I always hated how the cars in the movie Cars (which is just a stupid movie overall) had their eyes on the windshield. No! The headlights are the “eyes” of the car, if anything.
IIRC, it was to give the cartoonists more room to make the eyes “emotional” and to make them look less snake-like.
Saw it on a Fiat 500 the other day.
Uuugghhhh!!!
Sadly eyelashes can still be seen on UK cars,usually on new Beetles & Fiat 500s
I’d like to see them on something completely inappropriate like a H1 Hummer or a garbage truck, I bet the reactions would be much more interesting!
I used to have this scruffy old base model Mitsubishi Libero wagon as a daily driver for a while. I’d had the lights wired up to run with the ignition, and would get people flashing their lights at me (this was before day running lights became common here)
Fix; put a piece of silver duct tape diagonally across the grille and draw a Volvo V in a square badge in the centre of it with a black marker pen. Fooled most of them into assuming it was a Volvo – and almost all of those marketed here were set up to run lights with the ignition the same way there wer in their native Scandinavia, so they didnt bother to “alert me” to the fact my lights were on
Agree with all of the comments about tacked-on brick-a-brack like those eyelashes and the fake ventiports and the chrome adhesive numbers that let you tell others what size rimz you are running
The really puzzling one are the hoopties with the bright colors and really large rims that have a candy bar theme. Have seen these with Reeses and Twix themes, complete with custom airbrush paint and matching interiors in the garrish colors of the candy bar wrappers. This has gotta stop.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/297659856599829044/
That is industrial-strength ugly.
Did see an old VW bus with wood bumper on the back, the exhaust pipe was burning the bottom of the bumper and burning pieces of wood were falling off and bouncing down the road.
One I was guilty of, I broke my left ankle and had a few weeks off work until the cast was to come off. My ride was a ’66 VW Bus and the cast was too big to fit the small space between the clutch pedal and the front panel of the bus. A toilet plunger fit over the pedal and would not slip off, and a wad of duct tape attached to the end of the handle completed the ‘modification’. Down side was having to let go of the steering wheel when pushing down the clutch pedal and moving the shift lever at the same time.
It beat sitting home for 6 weeks and watching reruns of “Bewitched”.
For some reason that reminds me of the story of Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier in the Bell X-1. Two days before the flight he broke two ribs falling off a horse and was in a lot of pain, but didn’t tell anyone for fear of being booted from the flight. He made some kind of lever out of a broom handle so he could close the cockpit hatch.
Belonging to an employee that worked in a store at the local shopping center was a 2 door 1977 Buick Electra with every Buick emblem removed and replaced with Cadillac Coupe de Ville emblems, including the hood ornament and wheel covers. If that wasn’t insult enough for the Buick, all of the emblems and hood ornament were gold plated! This was in the late 1980’s and I always wondered if that person thought passerby’s would actually believe the car was a Cadillac and not a Buick.
A nice looking car that was not a Cadillac, though probably came off the same assembly line.
At least Caddy badges on a Buick are almost truthful, and I bet they fooled a lot of people with that. What about Bentley badges and fake Bentley grilles on Chrysler 300s? Or Smart ForTwos with Mercedes badging? (I know MB owns Smart, but seriously?!)
Lada Riva body kit
I’ll see your Lada Riva body kit and raise you a 1986 Yugo 55A with body kit, Recaro seats and a 1300cc Fiat Uno engine! For sale here currently for NZ$1,100 ($1 for every one of the original ccs).
I still think the Lada takes the cake, solely on account of its brick like appearance. Anybody putting a spoiler on a Lada is not only delusional, but outright bonkers…
Reminds me of this.
Lol, I’d forgotten about Brocky’s dalliance with the dark side! Although embarrassingly, my Dad’s cousin bought a Samara (sans body kit) new here in NZ…
Someone around here with a perverse sense of humor drove a Yugo stretch limousine that I saw about 20 years ago; not sure if he or someone else did the conversion. Apparently so did someone else since I found the one below on Google image search – it’s not the same one since it doesn’t have a padded roof and opera lamps!
The Yugo bodykit was available in a factory stock (two-tone!) version in the US, the Yugo GVX, at a steep premium over the base GV that put it in competition with many better cars.
Here, the Yugo was handled by the Dodge dealer and they only ever had one GVX at a time that stayed by the front door for months. I assume anyone considering it at all seriously would be sold on the comparative merits of an Omni, particularly when Chrysler rebranded it “Omni America” with EFI and a price cut for 1987.
The UK Lada, Yugo, Skoda & FSO importers were all guilty of loading cars with cheapo aftermarket type accessories to create “luxury” models or “special editions”. The base models were often loaded with even cheaper crap by their owners.
As a kid, if I ever saw a newish car loaded with crap by the owner, it was usually an FSO. A combination of furry steering wheel cover, beige go-faster stripes and wire wheel hubcaps were particularly popular.
This is a Beetle I bought a year ago last November. A teenage girl owned it.
Do you feel pretty now? 😉
The flower is missing from the vase! 🙂
Teenage girl gets props for driving a stick
Without a doubt!
How about an 80s Cadillac sedan with plywood Plymouth Superbird-esque aero wing bolted to the quarter panels. Spotted that at an Atlanta Ga apartment complex.
A perfect waste of a possible Bluesmobile clone. Shame.
A handle for pushing it when it won’t start?
Buick style portholes on the front fenders of import cars. Along with those fart cannons that make a 4 cylinder import car louder but not faster. They sound like 2 stroke lawn & gardening equipment (weed eaters, chain saws, etc).
“…full of sound & fury, signifying nothing.” Who are they trying to impress, anyway?
The stock Subaru WRX sounds funny & uneven to me, like it has an exhaust leak.
The “boxer rumble” was the product of unequal length exhaust headers. Non-turbo Subarus and the 2015+ WRX have equal length headers which produce a smoother but no less distinctive sound.
Had a friend in the eighties that had a seventies vintage Subaru coupe that had a cobbled together exaust system with a pair of glasspacks that sounded like a V8 until he got higher in the rpm range.
Always liked Subarus ever since.
Subies sound pretty sexy to me…and Im a die-hard ‘Murican V8 kinda guy.
Me too, unlike inline 4s Boxers actually sound decent just burbling along at cruising speed(like 90* V8s). Inline 4s need to be spinning at 8000-9000 RPM to get a decent exhaust note out of them, but then you have to shift, ugh.
They sound like someone farting in the bath
I see those portholes everywhere. I think they’re trying to look like a Maserati Quattroporte, not a Buick (although the portholes make the real Maserati look like a Buick IMO).
Just what every dentist in a big Acura sedan needs….an STi wing!…..
I absolutely love inappropriate vinyl tops on cars I don’t own. They’re hilarious. I want to see more elaborate ones, with covered up OEM windows to make fake opera windows and other over the top touches.
In the late 70s a UK custom car magazine built a VW Golf with opera windows & vinyl roof. What works on a Lincoln or Cadillac doesn’t really come off on a little hatchback
While I would not consider a personalized plate much of a modification, about five years ago I pulled up behind a Toyota Corolla with a custom plate reading: UNSER, I thought, will this be the one Corolla that pulls out smartly when the light turns green? No such luck, It just idled away much like most of them seem to do.
I think Little Al drives pretty sedate now so that could have been legit.
I was driving behind a BAO2ME last night.
Double bladed windshield wipers…. Remember those? I put em on my 1982 Tercel. With Hella H4s. I thought I was a rally driver
How about the TwinTyre, where you had a wheel that mounted two narrow tyres with the idea being that it vastly improved wet weather grip.
Buick Mustang.
5 portholes! Implying it has a V10?
Meanwhile in Russia…
Hehehe
This.
Blacksmithing at its worst?
It’s kind of fitting that this is a Dodge, given that the 1957 Dodge Sweptside pickup had sides taken off a car (or rather, a 2-door wagon).
A while back I spotted this gem near Brown University.
Back in the day, a friend bought a Lada, only because it was super cheap. I shopped the auto wreckers and got him a complete set of badges from the Fiat model it was based on… On the actual subject of discussion, I try mightily not to feel superior when I see these “modifications”, but many decades of actual hands-on wrenching sometimes make it impossible to feel any compassion for those folks…
Many Ladas in Canada got Fiat badges. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan shortly after Ladas went on sale. Some Lada owners found their cars were vandalized by local protesters.
Fiat nametags were a cheap way to disguise the cars and avoid vandalism.
There used to be a Dodge I would see around the university campus I work at that was painted that bright green color you used to see on vintage Dodge Chargers, with black stripes running up the hood/body/trunk.
Except it wasn’t a Dodge Charger. it was a ’93 or so Dodge Spirit.
I admire their sense of humor.
In the late 1980’s I worked for a company that sold dummy car alarm keypads and fake car phone antennas so you could impress your friends with your high-tech gadgetry. The phone antenna was called the Cellular Car Phoney.
I remember those!
How about a nice curvy Mercury Sable with a simulated convertible top?
Note: This isn’t the actual car that I saw. That one was green with a green padded top. Sadly I was in too much shock to snap a pic with my phone.
I saw one with an extra spoiler. sigh*
These are a lot more common than people think, I’ve seen a few. I like how it has the stitching around the rear window/smaller rear window treatment.
When I was in college in Cedar Falls, Iowa, I often saw a Ford Ranger in town that had very large cut-vinyl lettering on the tailgate that said “Friends don’t let friends drive Fords.” I never knew whether the owner was really dumb or really unhappy with his truck purchase.
I saw this on the Interwebs a couple of months ago:
Wouldn’t it have been easier to replace the heater core?
Oh my gosh, I have a list as long as my arm of things I hate!
Here are a few of them…
My hat is off to anyone who can find a pic of one vehicle that has several of these goofball embarrassments.
chrome gas door
barbwire license plate bracket
Maybe the owner is commemorating his stint at the place from where license plates originate. Kinda like acknowledging one’s alma mater.
Wouldn’t that be razor wire?
I suppose nowadays you’re right!
truck nutz
While matters of taste cannot be disputed this is beyond bad taste. Happily, this little fad seems to have… dropped.
Those trailer hitch testicles always gave me the thought of something in about as bad taste as possible. I hesitate to bring this up for fear of someone reading and actually doing it, but the one thing I’ve (surprisingly) ‘never’ seen was a big rubber dildo glued to the front of a hood as an ornament. I’m guessing that may be somewhat illegal, much like having obscene words stenciled on a vehicle.
OTOH, I always thought the ‘Pussy Wagon’ from the movie Kill Bill was kind of cool.
fake fighter plane exhaust ports
underbody lighting
hoodstack
I’ve never seen that before, at least not on a street-driven vehicle. Is that supposed to be an intake or exhaust? I’m guessing intake. Does it never rain where they live?
I have seen numerous pickups with a giant sewer-pipe exhaust coming up through the bed. That seems really stupid to me. Takes up cargo space in the box and looks ugly. Presumably part of the “coal rolling” crowd.
There’s another stupid modification. Many here know I’m a diesel fan, but messing with your injection system to produce clouds of black smoke almost continuously is dumb. It’s bad for your engine, bad for fuel economy, promotes a poor image of diesels with the public, and is unquestionably bad for the environment. (No global warming or smog debate required… soot is carcinogenic!)
That is an exhaust pipe. similar to a tractor… just a pipe straight up from the turbo. I have seen it a few times, not a lot, here in the great plains area of the US.
ultra low profile tires
fake bullet holes
Stick-on portholes on anything other than a Buick.
The dumbest add on that I have seen are blue lights. I read a local newspaper article a few years ago, about a group of “the fartcan crowd” who felt that the cops were picking on them for having blue lights on their cars. Blue lights are only legal for law enforcement.
bumper mounted mud flaps
Huh? These are perfectly acceptable if your truck is used to tow and you want to minimize stones and dust thrown up at the trailer or contents. Why else would one install them? They are so ugly!
“yo” modified toyota tailgait
Same idea with a car around here. Yellow v6 mustang with only the letters stang colored.
Intolerant People who cannot spell ‘ tailgate ‘ =8-) .
-Nate
gold plated spoked wheels
dingle berry window fringe
” dingle berry window fringe ”
Hey , wait a minute ! .
Oh , yeah , never mind =8-) .
-Nate
fuzzy dice
graduation tassle on rear view mirror
(or anything else but a parking permit hanging there)
animal print seat covers
Did you saw folks something like this?
This trend is called “stancing” the car. Also called hellaflush, it involves extending the camber of the car with the intention of having the top of the rim inside the fender with the bottom at least an inch from the outside of the fender. People compete to see how low they can go, with the ultimate goal being to have so little ground clearance that you can’t fit the key to your car under the front bumper. People are given special attention if the tires are a few sizes too small to fit on the rim, stretching them out to the point that the lip cuts into the pavement. Normally this means fitting size 195mm width tires on size 235 or bigger rims. I hate them because they destroy the cars, the road, and my sanity.
I hate this as well, but not totally, because if it weren’t for the camber and narrow tires I actually would like the look of that car, and I’ve had the same thought with other hellaflush cars I’ve seen as well.
Yeah… and these idiots probably can’t figure out why they wear out tires so quickly, either.
Exterminator’s rolling advertisement — a Bug converted into a mouse!
Just to be an ass, the original Fiesta hot hatch was XR2 (and later XR2i), not XR4.
Within my own squad, I’d plead guilty – Kamei spoiler, driving lights, black pinstrip taped taillights and a CB antenna on my NEW Toyota Corolla (sans hubcaps).
1981 was a weird time….
I’ll just leave this here…
I just puked in my mouth.
JTDC that’s hideous!
Kia Rio with WRX aspirations? Spotted in Townsville, QLD back in 2010….
It doesn’t get much more ridiculous than morphing a SHELBY MUSTANG and a SMART for TWO: (found on the web… from what I understand, the car actually exists and goes to car shows):
here’s another angle…
Many years ago–before most of you were born–my parents knew a doctor who tooled around Southern California in a ’59 Caddy, which evidently wasn’t gaudy enough to suit him. He had added a third tailfin–smack in the middle of the trunk lid. My dad (who had no love for the medical profession to start with) said it was proof positive that the guy was a quack. Remembering it now, I agree with Dad.
No description necessary.
Paul, just having fun reading through older posts; the comment above is spam, might be an idea to remove it. Cheers!
Thanks Scott! Taken care of.