VirtualModels

Mar

17

Honda Accord CL3 | Winter Dream?

After almost 15 years without a Honda I wanted to try it again and bought a CL3 Accord with the 2.3 VTEC quite cheap from an elderly gentlemen in the Black Forest. So, after many RWD-only winters I drove FWD again. And let me tell you… I was so glad we had only one week of snow in the 2016/17 winter! Front wheel drive is just horrible and takes all the fun out of driving in wintery conditions. Therefore I sold the Accord as soon as the the first flowers blossomed and went back to rear wheel drive cars for good. Never again am I going to buy a winter car that powers the wrong axle.

And even though I didn’t do anything to the real car, apart from replacing the fake wood interior trim pieces with fake carbon from a Type-R model, I went creative with Adobe Photoshop and let my mind wander. What if the Accord had rear or all wheel drive? It could sure enough be a nice ride for any winter, don’t you think?

Modifications could include Rays TE37 wheels (or cheap knock-offs because they would get damaged by the salt anyway), auxiliary driving lights, mudflaps and a roof rack. The reality looked rather bland in comparison, as you can see in the picture below. I didn’t even bother to buy the Streusalz Edition stickers.

The Honda was very reliable and never let me down. And to be honest… I absolutely loved the rear wing with the integrated Gurney flap.

Feb

19

Renault R18 Shooting Break

This is another one of those 15 minute challenges. I found a (very small and bad quality) picture of a Renault R18 Turbo wagon and thought this might look good converted into a shooting break. The actual shooting break conversion was done in six minutes, but it took forever to modify the rear wheel arch and to get the stance just right. The original ride height is more suited to a 4×4 trail than to a regular road and naturally I changed it. I kept the original wheel design, but increased the diameter an inch to 15″. This was fun, but it’s a shame the quality of the picture is horrible.

Prefer stock ride height and body? Check out the original picture.

PS: I might re-create this with a better picture at some point in the future.

Feb

14

Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser | Surfer Special 1967

Oldsmobile / Panel Van Conversion / Photoshop Chops Posted by Sebastian Motsch / 0 comments

A quick sketch on a napkin during lunch break last week inspired me to transform a full-size Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser into a station wagon surfers would have loved back in the late Sixties. Thanks to deleting the rear doors, the trunk space now reaches all the way forward to the B-pillar, which gives you plenty of room for the gear and a large sleeping area. The side glass has been replaced with metal, allowing for insulation and storage compartments on the inside walls. To ensure the period-correct look and feel I added fake wood to the sides, which is sourrounded by chrome trim. This also helps to stretch the lines of the vehicle. Imagine to lie in there with your favorite beach babe after a long day of surfing, pulling the curtains shut and gazing at the stars through the vista roof.

Check out the original image for comparison.

Feb

11

SAAB 9-5 SuperWagon YS3E+ | Family Wagon and Delivery Van

Panel Van Conversion / Photoshop Chops / SAAB Posted by Sebastian Motsch / 0 comments

GM thought it was a brilliant idea to add some Swedish flavor to their ~~rather sad and uninteresting~~ line of mid-size SUVs by introducing the SAAB 9-7X. The 9-7X was a classical GM badge-engineering job with a couple of different trim pieces here and there. It’s not hard at all to guess that the Swedish designers and engineers didn’t have a lot of influence in the development.

Let’s imagine GM would have given free reign to the Swedish colleagues, with the only mandatory requirement that they must build it on an existing platform. They might have come up with what I imagined in the pictures below: a SAAB 9-5 based SuperWagon. It would have featured more interior space, more windows for the kids to see out of during road-trips, better handling and fuel mileage than the horrendous 9-7X. The already spacious trunk space of the 9-5 Wagon would have been enlarged in height and width to fit all the necessary gear a family of four might need for a holiday.

Creating a 2-door delivery van for those needing less seat and more room for cargo would have been rather easy. To keep the distinct SAAB profile, the safety conscious Swedes would have added a window just aft of the B-pillar to improve visibility. Now only one question remains: do you think the SuperWagon variants would have sold better than the GMT360 platform based 9-7X?

Take a look at the original picture for reference.

Feb

07

Toyota FJ Cruiser GSJ15W | 2-Door Panel Van Conversion

4x4 / Photoshop Chops / Toyota Posted by Sebastian Motsch / 0 comments

To be quite honest, I’m not the biggest fan of the Toyota FJ Cruiser styling. However, I appreciate the value for money this vehicle gives any aspiring off-roader. These are very capable vehicles and there are lots of aftermarket parts available to improve it. When Larry Chen of Speedhunters fame bought his manual transmission FJ and started posting his stunning pictures, I literally looked at it in a different light. When modified, it doesn’t look bad at all and I was wondering what I could do to make my vision stand out from all the other modified FJs out there. Even though the design doesn’t naturally lend itself to being modified into a 2-door version, I thought I’d give it a try. To keep one of the main design features of the FJ, I carried the door/roof line over to the concept and kept the two-tone paint scheme. The shorter wheelbase I first tried looked rather silly due to odd proportions and therefore I decided to keep the original. The resulting proportions hint at the equivalent Land Rover Defender 110. A meatier set of BF Goodrich tires on budget-friendly steel wheels called for alterations of the front bumper, even though a lift kit with coil springs was utilized. While at it, the rear bumper was also modified to improve the departure angle and because two spare tires are better than one, I mounted them Dakar or Baja 1000 style in the area formerly occupied by the trunk.

If you want to compare the panel van conversion to the original picture, click here.