There's a huge aftermarket in the car industry. Whether it's non-factory replacement parts for things that have broken on your car, upgrades for performance, or any of the vast array of extras, goodies, toys, and gear for your car, from seat covers to headlight polish, it's all considered part of the aftermarket for cars. In fact, there are entire shows dedicated to cars that feature various aftermarket accessories called the "SEMA Show," which stands for "Specialty Equipment Market Association." Modifying cars can get extreme; we've all seen the kinds of crazy things people do to cars while we're driving on the roads, whether to work, to home, or just for fun. It's quite the booming industry, and people, for some reason, love modifying their sports cars—sometimes, really expensive ones, too.
The thing about modifying a sports car is that sports cars are most often designed by specialists, who spent months, years even, making sure their creation was optimized in every way—that it handled well, went fast, was aerodynamically sound, and many other things. To modify it after that, you have to be smart and conservative; otherwise, you risk jeopardizing the performance of the sports car. A lot of people don't quite understand that concept. More often than not, aftermarket mods are installed onto sports cars that should've never been touched in the first place. Here's a good look at 19 aftermarket mods that ruined these sports cars. By the end of it, you'll be shaking your head in bewilderment.
19 Ready For Lift Off
I don't know which is worse, the pure size of the wing on the back or the soldering wire framework holding it up. I'm just blown away by how this thing hasn't fallen off yet merely under its own weight. It looks like it's only attached at the bottom by a couple of small screws. As soon as this car hits highway speeds, I'd imagine the drag (yes, drag, not downforce) of this ahem "addition" would rip it right off. Maybe it's literally just for show, and the owner just takes it off and disassembles it between shows.
18 How Many Do You Need?
This old Porsche came equipped with a pretty beefy spoiler. It's what made the model so iconic and desirable. It's the kind of car I want to buy as soon as I can, mostly just because of the way it looks with the stock spoiler, funky and classy all at once in the same moment. But someone had the idea to screw on a spoiler—to the spoiler. How does that make any sense? Who thought that it would look good? Let alone actually work? I'm really not sure what the strange roof attachment is either. Don't think I want to know.
17 I Guess You Can Say It's Custom...
It's hard to find the original body shape of this Porsche underneath all of the shiny, lumpy body kit additions plastered to this perfectly functional sports car. Just to run through the body mods: front fender, footstep, rear fender, back bumper vents, back exhaust extension, giant spoiler, strange lumps on top of the roof, and who knows what on the front where we can't see? Seems quite a wanton waste of a great Porsche, considering it was a sports car, to begin with, so it doesn't really need any of that extra stuff on it. At least the mods are good quality, albeit worthless.
16 Is There A Car Under There Somewhere?
There are so many additions to this car, it's genuinely difficult to deduce exactly where the car ends and the mods start, especially with the addition of that preposterously huge tail fin. It's not exactly ergonomic, towering so tall that it needs support cables to keep it upright, which basically proves its worthlessness because, at speed, the spoiler is supposed to add downforce to the car to give it better grip. I don't think this spoiler is stable enough to provide any noticeable downforce, and the speed the car would have to be going to get any downforce would have to be phenomenally fast.
15 Who Needs Headlights?
I'm really not sure what's going on with this Shelby Mustang with an outrageous amount of additions to it. It seems straight out of a movie, although I don't know which movie. Looks like some sort of version of Night Rider or something. But in any case, this sports car has been ruined because of the mods. In fact, I don't think it even has a windshield. Or headlights due to the number of strange toys glued into the headlight sockets. And who would leave loose cords on top of the car? They'd just get ruined due to exposure in short order.
14 Visibility Is A Little Bit Reduced. . .
A little bit of overkill maybe? I get that this kind of engine is used for drag racing, but I don't think I've seen one quite this oversized and outrageous. At a certain point, it loses all practicality, functionality, and likeability.
This is, no doubt, just a showpiece, meant to stay impeccably clean in a showroom or garage and never be driven, a party piece that you turn on for people to hear and impress.
The fact of the matter is that this Mustang has also been ruined by the aftermarket mods installed on it. And those flames are truly hideous.
13 Body Kits Installed On Body Kits
This poor Honda is absolutely buried in body kits and aftermarket additions. Not only does it have a skirt around the whole body of the car; it has fender flares on top of that. Layer it wider and wider; that'll make it go faster. Oh, and the carbon-fiber hood with vents makes it go so much faster, saving ten pounds of weight. Of course, that doesn't factor in the extra hundred pounds of body kits added to it. At least it doesn't have a ten-foot spoiler on the back. Overall, this great-performing Honda sports car has been assuredly ruined by those aftermarket mods.
12 Who Would Slam A Ferrari?
There's always something extraordinarily sacrilegious about modifying a Ferrari in any way, shape, or form, most of all, by slamming it.
This particular build even involved modifying the wheel wells to fit the aggressively low stance, which, while I'm glad it was at least done professionally, is still an outrage, considering Ferrari has entire teams dedicated to the styling, suspension, tire size, ratios, weight, and handling of their supercars.
They're fine-tuned machines, cars that deserve to be preserved in their original state, not turned into useless street cars. It's a shame, really, even if it looks cool.
11 Not Exactly A Road-Tripper
There seems to be quite the large number of these Lamborghinis with roof racks stuck on top of them. I'm really not sure why either; it doesn't seem to make very much sense. While a lot of luxury supercars would do great as long-distance touring cars, I'd hesitate to say Lamborghini is one of them. They're aggressive machines meant for the track, and even on the track, they aren't exactly fun, mostly just terrifying, which means on the regular road, with bumps, rough roads, potholes, et cetera, it's not going to be a fun time, especially with that widened and lowered stance.
10 My Lumps, My Lumps, My Lumpy Body Kit
There's not a single thing on this Dodge Viper that's anywhere in the realm of excusable or okay. There's no way it's okay to modify a U.S. icon, one of the greatest sports cars made in the U.S., in this kind of irreverent, trashy, absolutely illogically bad kind of way. What's going on with that spoiler? I don't understand why it's even there. And can the body kit be any more bulky and outrageous? Every panel of this sports car has been modified, and the end result is a huge pile of trash. Such a shame.
9 Aren't The Tires Just Going To Get Dirty?
White tires are pretty cool—I'll admit that.
The biggest issue is that the road is covered in dirt and grime, oil, and filth, which means even if they're white, they won't stay white for very long.
But that's the least of the issues with this ridiculous BMW sports car build. This is an old 2002 tii, and it's a really sweet little sports car, another dream car of mine. If only this particular car could just, you know... drive forward and leave behind the ridiculous wide tires, wheel flares, and body skirt. Then, I'd take it in a heartbeat.
8 Where To Begin?
I really don't know where to begin with this Audi TT build. I really don't. I don't think I've seen such an outrageous car before in my life. It has a little bit of everything and too much of everything else. Fender flares, preposterously cambered wheels, outrageous spoiler, massive speaker system, red and white leather interior, aftermarket paint... the list goes on and on. Of course, none of these things make the car any sportier, none of the mods make it go faster, and none of the aftermarket toys make this sports car handle better. In fact, just the opposite is true.
7 Tin Man GTR
The aftermarket rims alone are enough to make you cringe and look away when you know how much goes into the crafting of the Nissan GTR sports car, a vehicle tuned to perfection from the day it leaves the factory. Everything on this car is assembled inside a hermetically sealed laboratory; that's how precise Nissan is when engineering this sports car. And the wheels are perfectly made, filled with nitrogen for better performance and durability. At least, they were, until someone lowered the car, added wheel flares, and generally ruined the entire performance of this Japanese sports car.
6 Another Wasted Ferrari
This Ferrari is a classic example of what not to do with your collector's car if you have one. Nothing on this thing makes any sense, and none of it seems practical in the least. Why change the engine layout and the hood design? It just doesn't look cool. And the red headlights? How about making the front of the car match the back, not just the headlights.
Of course, it's lowered and stanced, which as we all know, drastically reduces performance.
The craziest thing is that light bar, though, which calls to mind four wheeling and rally racing, none of which apply to Ferrari.
5 Scaffolding and Rivets Scream Finesse
Nothing shouts precision like a bunch of unnecessary rivets, some scaffolding, and a bunch of metal fins stuck to the bottom of a GTR. Clearly, whoever is doing work in this shop needs to be working for a racing company, or for Nissan, because he has a serious knack for finesse, details, and crafting a racing car that performs incredibly. Yeah, right... With a huge spoiler nailed to the trunk, some plastic fender flares riveted on, the worst aftermarket rims imaginable, and some kind of godawful decal on the side, it's clear this is just another ruined GTR.
4 Seems Like A Lot Of Extra Weight
I understand that this general setup is what people install onto racing track cars to make them perform and handle better, but when it comes to changing around a Lamborghini, it seems highly unnecessary.
There's a reason they don't look like this when they come stock.
No modifying needed, as they're already precision made supercars. They don't really need that kind of downforce, as they already aerodynamically create enough downforce to be track ready. That's kind of the point of supercars, especially Lamborghini. It's different if it's professional racing, but I doubt that's what this is.
3 Does The Extra Ton Make It Go Faster?
I don't really know what the point of that giant metal thing is on the underside of this car, but I don't exactly need to to know that the one thing it's doing is adding weight—a lot of weight. The only thing that might help this car along is if it has a seriously boosted engine, the kind of engine that can haul around an extra ton of weight. Obviously, that's an overstatement, but an installation that big has to add a seriously significant amount of weight to the car, which will affect the car's performance in virtually every way.
2 There Aren't Words
There really aren't words to accurately describe how seeing this makes me feel, and I'm sure it makes the majority of people feel the same. In one fell swoop, they managed to widen the fenders, get rid of the tail lights, add weird grille bars at window height, and install a spoiler as wide as the car is long—and just as bulky. It's really quite the spectacle, the kind of thing you're only privileged with seeing once in your life. Fortunately for us, we live in the information age, and these unspeakable horrors were committed to an already terrible Corvette.
1 What's The Pedestal For?
I don't know why the cars in this show are on pedestals; it makes them look strange, unbalanced, and foreign. Of course, it could just be the preposterously outrageous body kit on the bottom of this sports car. That might actually be why it's on pedestals: because the wheels don't reach the ground normally and because the body kit is too big, thick, and wide. I think the color of the car is worse, though, "Heinz Mustard Yellow" I'll call it, and it does sure look it, too. The black definitely isn't helping anything. Just paint the whole thing black already.
Sources: autoevolution.com, telegraph.co.uk, carstyling.com