Let’s face it, if you come to this site, chances are you have a list of cars you’d love to own, many of which probably fall into the supercar category. Well, if you can’t afford a Lamborghini Murciélago you don’t need to sell your house to buy one. You can simply purchase a car kit for far less money or follow a growing trend and “kit-bash” a new car. Kit-bashing is a term used by modelers who take different model kits and mix and mod the pieces to create something new. Most of the original Star Wars spaceships were created this way in the early 1970s. But, you can do it with a Ferrari, Mclaren, Bugati, Aston Martin, Porsche or my personal favorite, the Saleen S7.

Just as rat-rodding has become increasingly popular so has the hobby of turning kits into supercars, or transforming more run-of-the-mill rides into seriously super street machines. I mean, come on, who doesn’t want to drive a 2004 Chevrolet Corvette they’ve transformed into a GTM Supercar? Really, all it takes is some mechanical inclination, a fraction of the money needed to buy your average supercar (is there such a thing as an average supercar?) and the unrelenting desire to be king of the streets in your hometown. Not to mention, it sure beats sitting on the couch watching re-runs on the Velocity channel, right?

16 Barnyard Ferrari

from pbs.com

At the end of the day, not too many people can really tell the difference between the original supercar and the kit variation. Apparently, that also extends to barnyard animals. This Ferrari Dino kit car was found in a barn after sitting there for two decades.

Odds are, rodents have had their way with the wiring and possibly more, but the sheet metal and all the hard parts survived perfectly intact.

So, next time you cruise past a barn, maybe stop and ask the owner if they have any super car replicas hiding under the hail bales and cattle feed stacked inside. You just never know what you might find.

15 Who Says Bondo is for hacks?

from diablomotor.com

While Bondo and other body-filler putties often take on a series of negative connotations, many well-deserved, in the hands of the right person it can be used to create real art. Take this super-replica for instance. It’s clearly more Bondo than sheet metal at this stage, and honestly, there’s not much reason to add the body panels, from what we can tell. While it probably took a considerable amount of labor hours to get to this stage, if the builder put as much effort into the finished product, this is going to turn into one seriously nice supercar knock-off.

14 Italian Snub?

from pinterest.com

While the movie the Italian Job made Mini Coopers cool for a fraction of a second, nothing about taking one and trying to mod it into a supercar achieves the same result. At the end of the day, there are just some cars that don’t start with enough “awesome” in their DNA to make a supercar no matter how hard you try. And, from the looks of this Franken-Mini, somebody tried really, really hard. Hopefully, their next project was to start with something that had a better foundation to make a cool car, like a Civic, Maxima or TSX.

13 Don’t stop believing!

from deltaautomotive.com

Along the road to owning your own average-car-turned-super, you’re going to spend a lot of time in the valley of “are we there yet?” It’s that place where you can see the destination, but there’s still a long way to go. A place where if you take your eye off the road ahead and just look at where you are now, you might get discouraged and lose motivation.

But, remember, this isn’t just any ordinary garage project, you’re building something super!

So, keep up-shifting until you plant your project firmly in top gear. And, don’t forget to customize a few details along the way, so there’s no mistaking that this supercar was built by you and not some high-end auto artisan in a faraway land.

12 Blue Black Panther

from autoweek.com

If you happen to be in the increasingly small minority of people who already own a supercar company, but you want to get in on the kit-bashing action, you can follow the lead of ARES design, an Italian company that took a Lamborghini Huracan and transformed it into “Project Panther,” a seriously sweet “home-made” supercar. Sure, that’s not a viable route for the average Joe with a single-family garage and a Craftsman box full of hand tools, but for those who have all the skill but need a little nudge in the creative vision category, this might just do the trick.

11 Super Race Car

from racecarsdirect.com

For those who live in densely populated areas, having a homemade supercar might not be all that much fun, since the local surface streets don’t allow any chance of opening up the engine. So, what’s an urban supercar builder to do?

Find a local racetrack, dig into their criteria a car must meet to race there, and build your supercar to suit it.

Then, once you have all the finishing touches on your new low flying jet, cruise on over to the track and either run some laps just for the fun of it, or enter into local competitions. Surely the kid with the modded Civic or Mustang has no idea what you have under the hood, but they’ll certainly take notice when you blast past ‘em.

10 Darth Vaydor

from 95Octane.com

No, that sub-title is not a typo, the Sith Lord might just be in the car business. The Vaydor company builds a kit allowing you to transform your boring (sic) 2003-2007 Infiniti G35 into something straight out of a Star Wars street race.

The company makes some bold claims about how easy this transformation is, from stock to super.

But, chances are it doesn’t switch from boring to bold as fast as Bumble Bee of Transformers fame, so as with any major car project, we highly recommend doing your research before diving into this one. Apparently, the kits run just north of $11,000 (Infiniti G35 not included).

9 Imperial Red

from hcdmag.com

If yellow isn’t your thing, (and what Sith Lord would be caught flying a yellow T.I.E. Fighter?), then this red Vaydor is probably more up your alley – or pit lane. While the do-it-yourself kit cars do provide a great blueprint to follow, the ability to customize them to your own personal tastes provides a great opportunity to put your own stamp on things. Be mindful that when it comes to paint jobs, there’s not only a wide variety of options, there’s also a great deal of quality variations also. If you’re going to sink a substantial amount of pocket change into a kit car, it might be best to avoid the “economy” paint shops and go with a place better suited to painting a supercar.

8 Oversteer anyone?

from mrexotics.com

While the term “oversteer” may or may not apply to this unique exercise in crazy car modding, it’s obvious that trying to get this thing aligned won’t happen at the local tire shop.

What generates even more curious is the thought process behind doing a dual steering system in the first place.

Having one power steering rack and pinion, turning two wheels is more than enough steering effort to cut corners on anything from a 25-horsepower golf cart to a 10,000-horsepower top fuel dragster. While this Panther probably falls south of 500 horses, having the extra tire drag and steering component weight actually decreases the performance.

7 Artificial-ghini

from mrexotics.com

Somewhere, out there, in deep space, there’s a low budget science fiction movie missing a supercar. Other than the Lamborghini badge on the beak, there’s not much else about this that looks super. The height creates extra wind-drag, which is already turbulent over the too high roof once it hits the various peaks on the front clip. If the end result was just to make a marginally cool looking sci-fi car for some movie or tv show, then goal accomplished. But, if this is someone’s attempt at making a new supercar alternative, they might want to head back to the drawing board.

6 Alternate means of transportation

from ultimatemancavebuilder.com

During the build out, you may find it necessary to have the project worked on by any number of specialists. While your soon-to-be-super car can’t fly under its own power just yet, you’ll certainly make the local tow truck driver’s week by having them come give your super ride a ride on the back of their rollback. Most wrecker services charge a flat hook up fee and then a small amount per mile traveled, so check the rates of all the competitors in your area before handing the keys of your super-project over to just any handsome face with a tow truck.

5 Super Mario Car(T)?

from superstreetonline.com

If you can’t drive a supercar in real life, you can always turn to video games like Gran Turismo 5 or Forza Motorsports 7. If that proves to be unattainable, you can live your racing dreams vicariously through the life of Mario and Luigi in Mario Kart 8.

Now, should you discover that racing against Yoshi, King Boo and the rest of the Mario crew is truly your high-octane sweet spot, then the urge may strike to turn your own street car into a Super Mario Car.

If this is you, please don’t think this turns your ride into a supercar. And if you do, it doesn’t. Sorry.

4 Super Rat

from gawker-media.com

If you’re the “always on the cutting edge of new trends” type, odds are you’re already bent over the fender of your new supercar/rat rod project. By combining the any-man philosophy of rat rodding, complete with its steampunk aesthetics, along with a desire to drive a car that’s sole purpose is to connect the driver with the visceral thrill of driving at speeds most people fear, then this trend is all you. Plus, when Armageddon happens, and the Road Warriors take over, you won’t need the last of the Holden V-8 Interceptors, you’ll have the Hammer Head Huracan to race past Lord Humongous and his rag-tag band of post-apocalyptic ne’er-do-wells.

3 Shaker Rattle and Roll

from gawker-media.com

If you’ve exhausted your supercar kit budget on all the finer things, like a convertible top motor, frame and canvas, then maybe this mod is for you. Although, we don’t recommend it. But, if you have a good eye, a solid sense of artistry and a case of Krylon flat black primer, you too can join the fraternity of supercar paint and body folks. Sure, it won’t look like the paint jobs Ferrari, Porsche and Lamborghini are known for, but who cares, right? You’re driving a supercar while your neighbor is shoving the kids in the perfectly painted minivan.

2 Porsche Smorsche

pinterest.com

Not quite sure if this owner was aiming for supercar or sporty dune buggy. If the former, then this is a pretty hard fail. If the later, then bravo, this looks like it would be a blast in the dunes.

While sand railing requires a completely different set of tires, should the owner of this ride decide to use it as a real-life cartoon villain’s getaway car, the Joker and Riddler would look right at home rolling down the streets of Gotham City as they hope to evade the Batmobile. Maybe they can play cops and robbers with the Super Mario Car(T)?

1 Up, up, and away!

from bestride.com

Since many people refer to driving a supercar as flying a ground level fighter jet, it’s easy to see how the owner of this ride might feel like this car is just “plane” super.

Unfortunately, at least at the time of this writing, our best efforts to find any record of a propeller driven supercar have failed to yield results.

But, if nothing else, this one should be well equipped to drop JDAMs on unsuspecting oil change technicians in the local Quicky-Lube pit. And, for that, the people responsible for modding this one get a serious “A” for effort.

Sources: autoweek.com, racecarsdirect.com, superstreetonline.com