We use a wobbling mountain of old CRT monitors for a view screen here at The Autopian substation to beam in a lot of questionable automotive choices from all over the World Wide Web. But car enthusiasm is a broad church and we’re here for all of it—the good, but mainly the bad.
Or rather, the other Autopian staffers are. Someone has to be the voice of reason in this out-of-control bathtub of full of lunatics, and dear reader, I’m increasingly worried that’s me. The one who styles himself like he just walked off a Bunnymen album photoshoot and drives both an old Range Rover and an old Ferrari. All right, we’re grading on a curve but someone has to try and uphold standards around here, especially when it comes to automotive aesthetics.
Who has pissed in my morning martini this time? Glad you asked. I love American muscle cars. There’s just something about stuffing a ridiculous engine in a proletarian body, decorating the whole thing luridly and sending it out the showroom with an affordable purchase price and barely any brakes. They bring a slight warmth to my dead soul like a steaming plate of shower spaghetti.
Were I capable of your human emotions I would have a soft spot for the ’71 Mopars, specifically the ‘Cuda, Challenger and GTX. They represent the stylistic high watermark of the muscle car era. Do you know what else is good? The current evergreen Challenger, a brilliant example of heritage design done right. Do you know what’s bad? Trying to combine the old one and the new, one like some Detroit chimera.
That didn’t stop the builder of this abomination, now trying to offload his unholy hosebeast of a creation onto some poor sap without functioning eyesight. What is going on here? A poor ’71 Challenger has had its rear bumper removed and a fill panel badly butchered into its place. At the front, it appears the front fenders have been hacked back to allow a new Challenger front fascia to be delicately attached. With a lump hammer. Choices have been made. Did the builder have all the ingredients lying around the yard and after a few cold beverages one evening succumb to a boozy flash of inspiration?
Let’s pick through the description for an insight into the insanity:
“This is a one-of-a-kind build.” Translation: this is an idea so bad no one else had it. In the entire history of ideas, this is one of the worst. “An imaginative fusion of the old and new Challenger!” Anyone using the word fusion and not talking about a Ford needs to be flayed with a fan belt. “Front grill assembly was custom fabricated using 1971 grill components – truly a work of art.” Yes, the kind of art that requires a visible line of pop rivets to hold it in place. That’s a sign of quality craftsmanship. Someone get Rolls Royce on the phone and tell them they’ve been doing it all wrong.
“Oh Adrian, you’re being unfair,” you might be saying. “Let someone build the car they want, they’re not hurting anyone. You’re just pissy because someone has a different opinion to you.”
You know what? You’re goddamn right I am. You’re free to build whatever you want, and I’m free to critique it because my opinion is extremely qualified and my experience and training are relevant. And I love the sound of my own voice. Yet people feel entitled to shit out half-baked eye sores because they don’t understand or value creative work or worse still think that anyone can do it. When I don’t know how to do something, I enlist the help of experts who do.
Look at how the tape stripe bends sharply as it transitions from the fender to the nose. This is because the surface changes direction too abruptly – the intersection or join between the two panels has no continuity. Think of it like a peak instead of a smooth blend, forcing a jigsaw piece into a place it’s not meant to go. Looking at the stripes as a whole, they’re about as straight as a $7 bill. There’s a definite kink (not the good kind) as the feature line moves from door to fender.
It appears the scoop of a modern 392 has been grafted onto the hood of a ’71 without any attention paid to the curve of the trailing edge. The cowl is peeking through like when you did that “pull your lower eyelid” down thing as a kid. The rear windshield looks ready to pop out the first time you mat the thing, which you won’t be doing anytime soon as Frankenchallenger doesn’t have an engine or transmission.
Trying to clean up the rear to match the front has left a vast expanse of painted metal that falls away to nothing, which looks chinless and weak. Where are the exhaust tips going to go? At least there’s consistency in the inconsistent panel gaps, which are as hilarious as the ones around the hood.
A ’71 Challenger is a fine-looking car in its own right. If you want to modernize it there are better and more visually cohesive ways rather than throwing on a panel designed for a completely different car. Lower it a touch. Update the lighting. Correct the appalling-from-the-factory panel gaps and fitment. Maybe upgrade the door handles. Subtle changes that don’t fundamentally alter the carefully considered overall look. This thing is like wearing Yoji Yamamoto sneakers with a sports jacket; two totally contrasting looks that don’t fit together at all.
No matter what OEMs and superstar name designers may lead you to believe, a car’s appearance is never the work of one person. I touched on this in the comments of my Midjourney piece, but no creative person, no matter what the discipline, is an island. In the studio, there are lots of pairs of eyes on a design to form a consensus as to what works. And those people have been hired because they have demonstrated a high level of aesthetic sensibility and good judgment in their portfolio work and graduation projects. It’s like being a movie director: even auteurs rely on a trusted crew of cinematographers, production designers, scriptwriters and so on. Car design is no different.
Car design teams spend literally years tweaking details and features on full-size models as a car moves through the design process. This is as true today as it was in the ’70s. The end result is hopefully something that works as a complete vehicle. Do they always manage it? Of course not, but that should be taken as a reflection on how hard it is to get right, rather than an indication that designers don’t know what they’re doing.
Do you want to know why Ring Brothers keep wiping the floor with everyone else at SEMA every year? It’s because they hire a fucking professional car designer. I’m not saying you can’t try and beautifully customize your car your own way; just remember why you might fall short.
It’s like one of those photos where the more you look at it the worse it gets, but with multiple photos. Also, glad to see someone else using the term “hosebeast.”
Aah i finally understand why you design thinks i dont like and have no appreciation for thinks i like or the correct things. Now I can appreciate the beautiful contours of an old mustang, road runner, javelin, challenger etc. But they used what we had to do the Best we could hope for. They were great at going 1/4 mile straight very fast. However with new science we have cars that can not only go fast but they cant corner. Now im not talking about NASCAR here there are cars that look better, go almost as fast straight line but will kick the crap out of muscle cars. As a matter of fact the whole higher line of the muscle car is just copying uncle joe wearing his shorts up around his armpits. Be a fan of what you want but i like a car that can road trip or at least go more than a quarter mile and stop because you know cannot turn.
I’d definitely prefer a “Vanishing Paint” like roller to this thing.
The only items missing are the splitter and splitter guards. God, I hate those. They are fucking packaging! They are not meant to stay on your car after delivery!
Ugh… This is not an improvement. I get that the nostalgia factor is strong and the new Challenger is rightfully popular, but the original is far more appealing to me in every way. The remake is just an imitation and I will die on that hill.
I kinda get what you’re saying, but the market has evolved a lot in the last fifty years. I think of it like this. If I emigrated to America tomorrow, as a single guy who needs wheels with a bit of attitude and style yet isn’t a total compromise to drive, a new Challenger would be perfect.
I haven’t seen a Ring Brothers car in person so can’t comment as to their roadworthiness but in everything else they’re a clear cut above.
Obviously someone was too cheap to get the “Class A Surfacing” license for CATIA.
ICEMSurf is pretty exeosnive
I would like to see a take on those tailights on a modern one. I think they might work.
>Frankenchallenger doesn’t have an engine or transmission…Where are the exhaust tips going to go?
Nowhere, there won’t be any, ever.
The only way to save this thing is to do an EV conversion and just piss everyone off.
…including (hopefully) the original builder who turned it into-this.
(edit button pls)
I’d like to echo the suggestions for subtle upgrades, tweaks, freshening etc mentioned by the author. I have done some very mild customization to my older vehicles, and always color between the lines. My ‘76 Yamaha XS650 had been repainted by the previous owner and de-badged. I made my own badges at work with the CNC out of aluminum that looked period. I painted a few parts on my blue ‘94 F150 dashboard grey to give it some contrast and painted the bumpers, mirror caps and tailgate the same grey color (rest of the truck is white). I love those subtle customizations that look like they could be stock. It takes a lot more thought to accomplish something stick-looking than it does to just slap a bunch of shit on.
*stock-looking
Yeah, this is how to do it.
“And those people have been hired because they have demonstrated a high level of aesthetic sensibility and good judgment in their portfolio work and graduation projects.”
Yet we still get some ugly cars. Or attractive cars with tragic ugly bits.
And we still get terrible films and bad music. Your point?
The point is that all the training, experience, gatekeeping and pairs of eyes forming a consensus only makes one form of ugliness professional and expensive, not superior.
Ever since Nick Cage did those ridiculous stunts with Eleanor, dipshits have been emboldened to perform this unnecessary surgery on classics. F* that movie.
It’s such a weird film. It’s got this strange color grading going on, the dialogue is just bizarre and stilted and the chase finale is, well apart from the CGI jump just okay? Christopher Eccleston admitted he turned up for the cheque.
And it has an insane amount of Oscar-nominated actors in it, I mean for a remake of a drive-in movie a guy and his buddies put together for like USD 100k/GBP 84k.
All points are spot-on. The biggest offense to me is the mismatch between the contours on the original body (middle of the car) and the modern front/rear. It just looks like shit. I am also with the folks who say just buy a new one! These original cars are getting exceedingly thin on the ground (and pricey as hell) so don’t hack them up for God’s sake!
This is a crime worthy of The Hague. I agree with all the “it’s slapping modern bits from a car that’s trying to look classic on the actual classic” takes. Just…why? What does this accomplish? If you want a classic Challenger go buy a classic Challenger. They’re definitely not cheap and they’re horrendous to drive by modern standards, but it’s a move I will tip my hat to. They’re objectively cool.
If you want a modern Challenger go buy a modern Challenger. Love them or hate them (there are plenty of arguments for both sides) there’s absolutely no denying that they have presence. Despite the fact that they’re exceedingly common they always look cool and stand out. Unless it’s a hooptie Challenger (exceedingly common here in DC) or a decked out Challenger GT (self explanatory-get a V8 you n00b), I still enjoy them when I see them.
This just ruins both in one incoherent package. Boo. BOOOOOOOO!
You, sir, are completely and utterly wrong about an important element: ‘eyesore’ is one word. 🙂
I had a ’71 Challenger when I was a yute. I actually called it a Frankencar because it was one of those weird mish-mashes of parts that came together at the end of the model year: 318 2bbl (i.e. base engine), AC, power steering, and 2.94 open diff (aka one-wheel wonder), combined with Slap-Stick automatic, high-back buckets, and rallye wheels.
This white Challenger is a travesty. With any luck it will be purchased by someone with the sense to unscrew it.
There is that saying “The devil is in the details.” This is definitely bedeviled.
This looks like it was the work of Bubba’s get ‘er done shop on week nights prior to a race.
Something to be seen at speed from behind the fences, a reasonable facsimile of a production car.
Even Bubba would have rattle canned the cowl black. )-:
“The details are not the details. They make the design” – Charles Eames
This is a work of Art? Just who is this Art and where can I can find him? Boy needs a beat down. Smart enough not to sign his “work,” I see. The only challenge to this Challenger is keeping my lunch down.
Oh, God, Adrian! I wish I had never seen how an original Challenger has been butchered. There isn’t enough eye bleach in the world to cleanse this abomination from my glazzys. Ugh! That philistine couldn’t just buy a current one and screw that up? Now he is the kind of idiot that should get a threatening email, not David. But then, he probably can’t read, the moron.
“Homer, you’ve ruined a perfectly good jacket”
“Incorrect Marge. Two perfectly good jackets”
MY EYES!!!
WHY DID GOD CURSE ME WITH EYES?!?!
Yeesh. This is worse than the new Challenger I see around town with stick-on chrome bumper appliques and 20″ Torq-Thrusts.
I have an SN95 Mustang GT…with the base GT wheels. The horror.
And you know, as the years go by, I’m increasingly happy I didn’t get the optional Bullitt Torq-Thurst D replicas that were all the rage at the time.
Back then, I didn’t want all the “luxury” stuff that you had to buy as part of the package to get them, but now, after a good decade of full-on retro design Mustangs, I’m more appreciative than ever of something not simply trying to ape an earlier success. I feel the same way about when Ford offered base S197s with optional over the body Shelby stripes.
Boyd Coddington has a lot to answer for.
I do think the SN95 is a pretty decent piece of work. It takes the classic Mustang cues and updates them for the nineties without being retro. It was modern for its time. It’s a little soft perhaps, but much better than the New Age bastard that replaced it.
I like Boyd’s stuff. CheZoom was really cool back in the day.
Yeah he really gave custom car building a lot of credibility and did some great stuff.
But the billet wheel trend should’ve stayed in the early nineties. He had them on his Ferrari 456 IIRC.
I said at the time that it looked like every Mustang ever made rolled into one.
You know what? The SN95 is a great design that was perfect for the era. It really deserves some rediscovery.
Maybe this was because I was 9 when it came out and that’s the right age to be influenced strongly by something but I’ve always really liked it. I’ll be so bold as to say it’s in the top half of Mustang styling.
It’s like adding wood or chrome hub caps to a PT Cruiser. Just fucking why? I do wonder if this is an American affectation – it’s that weird thing of being so backwards and yet forwards at the same time. Silicon Valley and top loading washing machines.
For me anyway, car design seems coolest when it’s kinda like a vector – it’s a thing heading somewhere, commonly (but not always…Morgan comes to mind) into the future.
The original Challenger design was great looking and new; the modern one channels that design but in a contemporary way.
But to make an original Challenger look like a new Challenger, which itself is channeling an original, seems like running in a circle.
Yep, this is a cautionary tale on why the average Jimmy Lunch bucket should not attempt bending sheet metal in an effort to make something “better” than what a team of professional designers created with all the best tools and talent available at the time.
This thing is truly the worst of both worlds.
And yet, you have to somewhat admire the sheer lunacy of his vision for this car, even though it turned out to be kind of a mess.
“The evergreen Challenger.” “Retro done right”
I don’t get you sometimes. The Challenger is the most atrocious of the current retro designs. The fact that it hasn’t gone through more than a cursory facelift in its tenure is also horrible. “Oooohhh…. Dodge upgraded the tail lights and the headlights! fancy!
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the slab sides of the current Challenger are just bad, and this build actually highlights that wonderfully. Look at how the sides tuck in under the door, follow that line up front and you just get… fat.
Bleh.
Now, that being said.
This is just godawful bad. There is a hint, just a soupçon of promise in the rear of the car, but it is dashed on the rocks of “the enemy of perfect is good enough”
Now I personally love those rocks. Those rocks have prevented me from drowning on multiple projects. They have had me motoring down the road and enjoying my vehicles.
This is not a vehicle where you can beach yourself on those rocks. This is not a vehicle where you want “good enough” to be involved. You want this to be great. Unfortunately, it very emphatically is not.
I’m not sure if we’ve had his conversation before, but the Challenger is selling better than ever and it’ll be fifteen this year.
We have. Last time I pointed out that the only thing that ever saves it is the addition of the flared wheel arches on the higher end models. Breaks up all that flub and flab.
And just because its selling well doesn’t mean its not ugly: it just means Dodge fanboys are blind.
I’ve often thought it’s all the contrasting, assorted metal trim pieces on old cars that really makes their designs work so well…slab or round, that trim visually brakes up large expanses of meh into smaller pieces of all right.
And I suspect modern Challengers are selling well for reasons less about good design and more about their drivers wanting to deliver a message to others. Too bad they can’t necessarily control what that message is.
They haven’t updated it because it’s a good design and trying to update a retro vision to mix in more modernity isn’t going to work. If you don’t like the sides (which were similar on the original btw) toss some stripes on there. The proportions are right, and the car stands out against other fake-retro cars of the time like the New Mini.
and trying to update a retro vision to mix in more modernity isn’t going to work.
Yeah sure, tell that to Ford with any of their retro designs.
No matter how bad this is, it is miles better than the C1/C5 Corvette mashups that you see running around from time to time.
Or the ’55 Bel air bodykit for the C5 chassis.
Haven’t had the “pleasure” of seeing that one in person, I think I’ll pass on Googling it, thanks.
Remember how people used to joke about the 4th gen F-body being a catfish?
Those people aint seen shit till they’ve seen that body kit
WHAT THE ACTUAL BICYCLING COCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE. YOU PUT MEN ON THE MOON FOR FUCKS SAKE.
Unfortunately we’ve done nothing noteworthy since.
Thats the beautiful/horrible thing about a bell curve, my man. For those great highs you get some fucked up lows.
We’ve been resting on those laurels for awhile, now. In our defense, it is pretty great that we are afforded such artistic license with our vehicles. After reading about the rigid requirements for aftermarket additions in countries like Germany, I am grateful to live in the USA. It’s like the 1st amendment – you take the good with the bad. It’s all protected speech. If being able to enjoy cool kit cars, TASTEFUL restomods, etc. means I have to tolerate this junk, so be it.
I once saw a nicely done mashup of Tri-Five (and maybe some ’58?) bits scaled down on a modern ‘Vette chassis, at a car show in Lake Havasu City.
I haven’t seen one of those and just knowing they exist out there has made my day worse. Thanks a lot!
Never having to see those again will be one of the best things about the Boomers dying off
Some kinds are make them trendy again. Just wait and see.
Luckily I have bout 3000 miles of cold salty water separating me from such mutants.
Or worse, the “Imma make my 4th-gen Camaro into a tri-five.” Eww.
$20k with no engine and transmission? For a “custom” body on a frame that is likely to be questionable? Wow.
yah, but those tail lights…
https://cdn.vectorstock.com/i/1000×1000/15/72/comic-cartoon-man-with-narrowed-eyes-vector-7051572.webp
I didn’t want to comment on the price because I wasn’t 100%, but yeah that felt a bit la la land as well.
The price is very “my spouse wants this eyesore out of our driveway but I don’t so I’m shooting for the moon.”
I KNOW WHAT I HAVE. ONE OF A KIND LOW BALLERS.
NO LOW BALLERS GODDAMIT