Think of crazy, over the top car modifications, and chances are that most people think of Japan and its weird motoring subcultures or perhaps the highly polished street racers from the Fast and Furious movies.
However, there are a lot of ordinary men and women in the States that love nothing more than tinkering with their vehicles on a weekend, adding a few aftermarket extras to make their pride and joy look its best or even giving their car a custom paint job. They may even decide that they want to make some serious alterations to the suspension or the engine in order to improve their vehicle’s performance.
You just have to look at the number of car makeover shows on television channels to see how passionate the USA is about its wheels. From the fun and frothy Pimp My Ride back in 2004 to the more serious magazine show Top Gear which was relaunched in 2017, motoring modification shows fill a lot of time on our TV schedules.
Unfortunately, this also gives the average man or woman on the street the very wrong idea that car modifications are easy, leading to some rather bizarre and unusual vehicular creations. The vehicles in the list below could easily be described as among the weirdest modded cars in the world – and many of them are downright impractical too.
19 Supercar
The owner of this particular vehicle is obviously a huge fan of comic books or maybe superhero movies. Either way, creating a unique modded trunk – complete with Superman models and Superman branding – is one way to show your love for the genre, even if the end result is a little too garish. It does seem that they have missed a rather obvious automotive alternative, however. After all, if you’re a super fan of comic book superheroes, surely the best way to pay a vehicular tribute is by turning your own set of wheels into the super sleek and sophisticated Batmobile? Now that’s a cool way to modify your car!
18 Flight Of Fantasy
Unicorns are everywhere these days; women seem to have adopted them as their spiritual mascots, and despite being an imaginary beast, it is actually the official national animal of Scotland!
Turning your car into a unicorn is surely a mod too far, even for the biggest fantasy fan.
If the weird and wacky paint job and the tacky wings on the rear, erm, wings, aren’t bad enough, sticking a massive unicorn horn in the middle of the hood is surely just going to create a safety hazard. How on earth is a driver supposed to get a clear view of the road ahead with that in his way?
17 Flex Your Muscle
The mod on this muscle car would also create a safety issue for drivers – although at least it is way cooler than the unicorn vehicle. Adding aftermarket parts to the engine is pretty common when it comes to muscle cars – just look at the classic blown 1970 Dodge Charger driven by Vin Diesel in the first Fast and Furious movie. Aside from looking good, it can actually improve a vehicle’s performance to have some parts of the engine exposed, as the air can keep it cool and running more efficiently, but this is way too much kit, and would just make the vehicle impossible to drive.
16 Spoil Your Fun
Spoilers can have a useful role to play when it comes to improving the aerodynamics and performance of a vehicle, but there are definitely good ways to spoil a car and bad ways to spoil a car.
And this is a classic example of how to ruin a perfectly good car with an unnecessarily over-large spoiler.
The driver may think he looks cool, but a spoiler that wide is actually going to increase drag on the vehicle, not help you go faster. Add to the terrible spoiler the equally garish paint job, and you have yourself one car ruined by over-modification.
15 Stars And Gripes
The Mazda Miata is a hugely popular sports car in the US. Inexpensive, reliable, and with all the style and panache you would expect from a much more expensive roadster, it is not hard to see why it is such a big-seller in the States. What is more difficult to understand is why the owner of the car above hates his Mazda Miata so much that he would give it that highly questionable paint job? And let’s not forget the matching wheel trims. All in all, this is one car owner that should have just left well enough alone.
14 Portable Friends
It might be a little hard to figure out what is going on with this modification, but believe it or not, this almost unidentifiable car is covered in plastic figurines, models, and toys – from the grille to trunk, and from the roof to the wheels.
The question of why anyone would want to do this to their car is probably best left to a psychiatrist, but the extra weight of all those figurines would surely have an effect on the car’s performance, and trying to sell it on when it looks like the result of an explosion in a toy factory has got to be nigh on impossible.
13 Back To The Future III
When Back to the Future first hit cinema screens in 1985, everyone shared Marty McFly’s disbelief that Doc Brown had made a time machine out of a DeLorean.
When they were first built in 1981, these were considered to be the height of 80s automotive design, but just four years later, they were already falling out fashion.
Not with the owner of the DeLorean in this picture, however, who clearly decided to take what was already his favorite car and make it three times better. It may be an eye-catching creation, but it’s certainly not a very practical one.
12 Designer Modification
The owner of this vehicle is obviously more inspired by high fashion than Hollywood glamor. The black and white custom paint job – with matching white rims, of course- as well as the attention-grabbing Chanel logo means that this car would certainly stand out in a crowd.
Coco Chanel, the founder of the iconic brand, was famous for her pithy quotes on style and fashion, and it isn’t too hard to imagine what she would have made of this monstrosity.
One of Coco’s most famous quotes was: “Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity.” The owner of this vehicle would have done well to heed that advice!
11 Go Away
Sticker bombing is a car modification fad which started in Japan, but which has made its nefarious way around the world, including to this poor vehicle in the US. Putting a few stickers or decals on your car can actually be a cool way to personalize your vehicle; but when things go too far, you end up with a set of wheels that look like they belong in an animated TV show. Do people who do things like this to their vehicle never think of the resale value? At least this driver had the time and money to cover the whole vehicle; some only manage to cover one panel at a time, which looks even worse!
10 Pretty In Pink
This mod is particularly weird because of the kind of vehicle someone has chosen to drive, knowing that they were going to add a few touches of pink to the bodywork and wheels. The 21st century may be all about equality, but the fact is that when we think of pick-ups – even the more modern luxury models – we still tend to think of men behind the wheel. So the driver of this particular modified mess is either a man who is very comfortable with his own sexuality or a woman who probably should have bought herself a cute Mini Cooper instead.
9 Topsy Turvy
There are probably a few motoring fans out there who think that this completely rebuilt and modified car is pretty cool – but cool or not, there is no doubt that it is a weird choice for an owner to make!
This vehicle is the creation of Rick Sullivan, a mechanic from Illinois who spent $6,000 turning a 991 Ford Ranger pickup truck and a 1995 F-150 pickup into one crazy looking car.
Apparently, he was inspired to make this outrageous mod when he was called to tow a Ford Ranger which had overturned. Put this one on the “maybe” pile.
8 Seeing Double
Perhaps the most tragic thing about this mod is the beautiful retro car which somebody has mangled, just in order to create something which looks weird next to the original anyway. It’s difficult to tell if they have added an extra grille and set of headlights on the top or bottom of the hood – or maybe both are new and they got rid of the originals to make way for their unpleasant and thankfully unique modification. There is no purpose for a double set of headlights, and they may even be considered a hazard as drivers coming in the opposite direction would find the whole situation very confusing.
7 Weinermobile!
Perhaps a slightly unfair addition to this list of the weirdest modded cars in the world, given that the famous Oscar Mayer Weinermobile was created for promotional events. But it would be interesting to know just how the advertising executive responsible for this monstrosity managed to sell it to the client – it hardly makes hot dogs look more appealing or appetizing, does it?
And then there is the issue of what you do with such a vehicle after the promotional campaign is over – either find someone who really loves hot dogs to take it off your hands or leave it in the garage gathering dust.
6 Pipe Down
Aftermarket exhausts are a pretty common modification; though amateur mechanics have to be careful that they are not removing essential equipment which ensures their car complies with emissions standards in the US.
If you get caught without this kit, you could be in serious trouble. The twin super-charged exhausts on this vehicle, however, are not just likely to break rules on emissions but are completely pointless.
Wider exhaust pipes are a good idea when you have a very powerful engine in your car, but there isn’t an engine in the world that needs exhaust pipes of that size to work efficiently!
5 Bless Us All
There is nothing wrong with a little bit of patriotism from time to time. And there’s nothing wrong with someone showing off that patriotism with perhaps a subtle Stars and Stripes bumper sticker. It becomes a problem when someone decides to go so overboard with their love for their country, that it ends up ruining a perfectly good vehicle.
The flags are bad enough – and would certainly be a distraction while driving down the highway at high speed. The real issue, however, is the giant eagle perched on the hood; aside from being tacky and more than a little gauche, how on earth is the driver supposed to see past it?
4 Little And Large
There is probably only one major car modification more popular than aftermarket exhausts, and that is aftermarket wheels and tires. Sometimes, changes are made to a vehicle’s wheels and tires for purely cosmetic reasons; alloy wheels don’t improve the performance of a car, but they do make it look really sharp. Tires are more likely to be linked to performance, but it is difficult to work out whether the owner of this car was trying to make their motor look a bit more menacing (fail) or perhaps to produce a smoother ride (likely another fail). Putting such chunky tires on a small car makes a vehicle look very off-balance.
3 Merry Christmas!
Vinyl wraps are a pretty showy way of decorating your wheels; these wraps come in various shades, colors and even patterns, and is definitely rather a garish way to put your own personal spin on your car.
However, vinyl wraps last quite a few years, which makes the car in the image above all the more bizarre. It appears to have been covered in a Christmas-themed vinyl wrap, all ready for the holiday season.
The alternative is that the owner has literally wrapped their car in Christmas gift wrap – which at least has the benefit of being temporary, even if the slightest rain shower would turn it into paper-mâché.
2 Mix And Match
At least most of the modded cars in the list have managed to stick to one theme or even just one modification – even if that theme often ends up having weird and unintended consequences. If there is one thing worse than just one bad modification, then that is a whole series of mix and match modifications which leave a car looking like it’s been put together from parts from a junkyard. The poor vehicle above has ended up looking like some kind of glitzy Frankenstein’s car, patched together with different panels, colors, and features. Time to make your mind up, owner.
1 A Little Off
The last few years have seen an increase in sales of SUVs and the number of different SUV models being sold by auto companies.
While many of these sporty beasts get to enjoy off-roading, there are just as many which never make it out of the city. Such a shame for vehicles which are built for so much more!
Just because you fancy giving off-roading a try, however, doesn’t mean you can just strap some rugged wheels and tires on any old car and set off for the hills. The car in the above image is a classic example of how wrong that approach can be…
Sources: bbcamerica.com, mazdausa.com, motor1.com, cnbc.com, micksgarage.com