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Jul
05
The BMW 2002 ti was a proposal designed by Marcello Gandini and built by Bertone. It was displayed at the 1970 Salon d’Automobile in Geneva and disappeared after the show ended, never to be seen again.
Jun
15
Chevrolet 4400 Chassis Cab | Hot Rod Concept
Sometimes a “quickie lunchbreak photoshop chop” is abandoned because of a small glitch that can’t be fixed at the time. In this case, I forgot the picture on my hard drive for a couple of years. With years more experience now, the then-unfixable glitch was remedied in a matter of not even 15 minutes and the chop finished.
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Aug
13
The Lamborghini Espada is a vehicle with a very different design approach and reflects the adventurous Seventies very well. Nonetheless it is a beautiful or even sculptural vehicle with stunning details. Believe it or not… this Furgone Veloce version happened by accident. I just wanted to lower the Espada and remodeled the rear wheel arches to fit bigger diameter wheels. It looked horrible with the stock rear window. Consequently I had to design a new window and eventually came up with the idea to convert it to a panel van. Similar to the Citroën CX Tissier shuttling newspapers, it might have been utilized to get the Gazzetta dello Sport to the chiosco quicker.
If the diligent newspaper shuttle driver needed more space, he might have ordered a furgone veloce with even more space for cargo. This would have necessitated extensive drivetrain and frame geometry modifications, of course.
Aug
01
Lately I had a phone conversation with a friend and he asked me what I think about Daihatsu. Due to my experiences with Daihatsu vehicles, I’m quite fond of the engineering, reliability and longevity. I drove my first Daihatsu Cuore (aka Mira) while studying in Karlsruhe, had a long-term hire Sirion while living in South Africa and even took that one to 4×4 trails without any worries or problems. Mind you, it was not the all wheel drive version. I have never driven a Materia, but it definitely is on my bucket list. I like the styling of the body very much, but the dashboard with the centered instruments doesn’t do it for me. Researching the PCD and availability of tuning parts, I stumbled upon the Inden Design shop truck. Taking this concept a bit further is easy with photoshop. Remove the rear doors, convert it to a panel van and it’s done. Or isn’t it? To make the converted car look good, I modified the rake of the B-pillar and changed a few things here and there to get the proportions right. Once finished it received some spice: I lowered it, added vintage Gotti wheels and converted them to multi-piece with BBS barrels. Now, would you jump into this Materia to fetch some parts or deliver pizza?
Feb
14
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
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
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.
Feb
05
After the recent modification of a Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham I went looking for more GM B-platform cars that could be modified. I found a picture of a Buick Roadmaster Estate Wagon and immediately started to modify it. What I came up with is essentially similar to a Chevrolet Nomad: a two-door wagon. Because it looked rather odd with windows, I decided to take the conversion even further by modifying it into a panel van, lowering the car and giving it a wider track. Thanks to the body-on-frame design this shouldn’t be too hard to create in reality.
You don’t like it? Please feel free to enjoy the original picture.
Nov
12
When the Opel Signum first came out I thought it was a horrible design with odd proportions. Not much has changed over the years – I still think the proportions are not great on the Insignia. But nonetheless, my motto is that you can turn every boring car into something more interesting. Et voilà – let me present the two-door Opel Insignia Panel Van with a Steinmetz bodykit and a Thule box on the roof rack. Gold colored Rays TE37 wheels look good on most cars and prove the point that often the wheels make the car look good in the first place. It was fun creating this with Adobe Photoshop. Now, who dares to do this in real life?
Jul
26
“Every great inspiration is but an experiment – though every experiment we know, is not a great inspiration.” Charles Ives
Inspiration comes from many sources. When it comes to cars, a friend of mine often unwittingly provides inspiration for photoshop chops. He had been looking at a car with the possible intent of buying it and sent a set of pictures to our Facebook group. None of us recognized the vehicle even after he told us what it was, but everybody came up with the same joke in return: Plymouth Reliant? Oh wait… wasn’t there a funny tricycle called Reliant Robin that kept rolling over in one of the TopGear episodes a few years ago? We had a good laugh and forgot about the malaise era car immediately afterwards. See it, turn around and the next second the memory is blank again. Not really what you would call an enthusiast car, right? Yes… but hey, I can’t help it: the pictures of the pale yellow car and the Reliant Robin jokes sparked an idea…
Here is the inspirational TopGear video mentioned above:
May
28
Aston Martin Lagonda Panel Van Conversion
Aston Martin / Panel Van Conversion / Photoshop Chops / Shooting Brake / Shooting Break Posted by Sebastian Motsch
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4 comments
Five years ago I created a photoshop chop image of an Aston Martin Lagonda Limousine Dragster. Ever since then I wondered what an accompagnying shop truck could look like. Today, while watching the 24h race of the Nürburgring, I finally did it. From the front to the B-pillar it is 100% original, but everything further back has been modified. In order to prevent the vehicle to look tail-heavy, I decided to add a window just aft of the B-pillar. This makes the vehicle look more elegant and concentrates more optical weight in the center of the car. And to make an already long car look even longer, I lowered it. Larger diameter wheels with less sidewall give it a more modern look and the pinstripe is the icing on the cake. Now – who wouldn’t love to haul parts for the shop with this rig?
Apr
30
Out of pure curiousity I wanted to know what a Mercedes-Benz C107 450 SLC would look like as a shooting break. However, midway throught the project I decided to create a panel van of the MAMPE Lufthansa Cocktail liveried racecar instead of the civilian shooting break. 😉
Nov
23
In case you’re not a friend of the Saharabeige BMW 2002 Turbo Panel Wagon, here is a different version for you: medium grey with M-colored turbo stripes. Instead of placing them on the usual location on the front fender, I opted to put it on the door. This creates a nice mirror-like effect with the A-pillar, which is almost shaped like an arrowhead pointing in the direction of travel. Next up will be an El Camino style pick-up. Stay tuned!
Check out the BMW 2002 4-door touring this conversion is based on.
Nov
21
Creating the BMW 2002 Touring was so much fun that I decided to run with the idea and turn it into a panel wagon. I kept the shortened front doors to maximize cargo space in the spacious rear compartment. Having done that I noticed that the half of the vehicle looked rather bland. 2002 Turbo fender flares and BBS E50 center-lock wheels help tremendously to remedy this situation. Gotta haul those BMW Motorsport parts in style!
PS: Wait for the next iteration if you don’t like the period-correct Saharabeige (oo6) of this version. 😉
Apr
01
Today, I was rummaging through some boxes full of old car magazines and dealer brochures. While thinking about all the nice cars that are about to become classics, I found something interesting: a Nissan information brochure from 1985. In this brochure, the CUE-X Wagon concept car is presented with all the features and details, including engine specs. Considering the brochure is now 30 years old… this vehicle looks very modern even by today’s standards. I’d definitely consider buying one, if they’d offer it with the RB26DETT engine!
Mar
21
Zündapp Janus 7500 4×4
4x4 / Jeep / Panel Van Conversion / Photoshop Chops / Zündapp Posted by Sebastian Motsch
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0 comments
Watching the second Pixar Cars movie inspired me to photoshop a Zündapp Janus. A couple of hours later, this little monster was born: a modified Janus body with partially blocked windows, sitting atop a Willys Jeep frame. Simple, clever and easy. OK, I admit that it might be a tad more challenging to create this in reality. However, I did find a Renault 4 bodied Jeep a couple of years ago in France.
Nov
25
Let’s suppose you are a Citroën enthusiast who, at some point in his life, wondered why the French automaker never bothered to produce a two-door Coupé version of the BX series. Well, dare I say it wouldn’t have looked ugly at all! The straight lines of the body actually are very inviting to try different styles, in my humble opinion. A shortened wheelbase, deleting the rear doors, adding a period correct set of alloy wheels and changing a few little things here and there make for a nice concept of what the Citroën BX Coupé could have looked like. Et voilà, mesdames et messieurs, c’est fini!
Mar
30
Citroën has built many cars that have been well ahead of the game. However, they never built a CX Shooting Break with gullwing doors. But hey, they could have – and nobody would have been surprised at all. 😉
Oct
15
Winter is just around the corner – better be prepared in style.
The Lincoln Indianapolis Boano Coupé concept car inspired me to create a vehicle suitable for the snowy season. The shape of the car didn’t need much tweaking. A healthy top chop, the running gear of a Ski-Doo snowmobile and a few minor tweaks is all it needed to look the part. It could even be quite functional.
Aug
27
Ferrari 412i 2+2 Shooting Break Concept
Ferrari / Photoshop Chops / Pininfarina / Shooting Brake / Shooting Break Posted by Sebastian Motsch
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0 comments
Frequent readers of my blog know that I do have a sweet spot for two-door wagons. Whether they are called shooting break or shooting brake is an entirely different story. I decided to call them shooting break, because some (European) manufacturers call their regular station wagons Break.
The Ferrari 412i 2+2 is a very nice base for a shooting break conversion. Straight lines would make it easy to perform this task in real life. Though I doubt that anybody would actually so that. Most people would probably just run away and scream bloody murder!
Aug
24
The design of the Citroën BX is actually based on the Volvo Tundra Concept by Bertone. Volvo rejected the design and Bertone recycled it when developing the BX for Citroën. The BX is an interesting car, but a little bland. The image of a base level BX driving on a typical French alley inspired me to give the car a much cleaner and more futuristic look. Would’ve been cool if they had actually built it like that, wouldn’t it?
Aug
06
Strive for perfection in everything you do.
Take the best that exists and make it better.
When it does not exist, design it.
Sir Henry Royce (1863 – 1933)
Well, sir. A Rolls-Royce EX101 with gullwing doors just didn’t exist yet. So… I designed it.
Sep
14
You could use a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter for those express deliveries like everybody else does – but you could get there in half the time utilizing the Mercedes-Benz R-Class Delivery Van. It’s not just a sprinter – it’s a long distance runner! Oh… and a mighty fine vehicle for towing trailers as well.
Aug
21
Bertone designed the Volvo Tundra Concept in 1979. Volvo rejected it, but it was later used as a base for the design of the BX by Citroën. I thought the Tundra looks odd, with weird proportions and details. Therefore I decided to spice it up a little. Somehow it now looks like a period-correct Group B homologation model 😉
Aug
07
The Pinin Concept had a huge influence on the design of many cars of the mid to late eighties. A beautiful and elegant vehicle, designed by Pininfarina. For a long time I wondered what it would look like as a more practical estate wagon. Just as elegant, isn’t it?