Unless you go full bespoke, pretty much any modern car you might purchase is not going to be remotely unique, and there will be plenty of other people driving the same machine that you have, right down to the trim level and options. (Now hold on Corvette Guys, I know you have the only C3 convertible to ever be manufactured on a Tuesday with a white top and silver – not chrome – snaps or whatever, but you know what I mean). With few exceptions, no production car is going to really be just for you, an expression of your unique style and sensibility (easy there, Paint To Sample Porsche owners, it’s OK, I see you). And so, many of us personalize our rides.
Sometimes the personalization is stealthy – perhaps a suspension and tire setup dialed in to suit your refined sense of handling – and other times, mods are made that really scream to the world, “This is MEEEE!”
And why is this on my mind? I give you Aja Cassidy and her stained glass sunroofs, which I think are pretty clever and fun. I’m sure that’s some sort of peel-and-stick situation up there, not lead and glass, but it certainly is a very personal touch. No one who climbs into Aja’s Honda will mistake it for Bethany’s, or whoever’s.
In my much younger days, when I was on my second Dodge Omni (a red example just like the one below, which may have actually been a Plymouth Horizon, but it doesn’t matter), I decided the dowdy little hatch needed something to make it my Omni, a little extra kick that would say, “Hey, who’s that cool guy?” I’d noticed that a lot of new cars had their B-pillars and window trim blacked out, which made for a sleeker, longer, more-together look – as opposed to the old-fashioned chrome and color of my machine. Did I not spy a can of black enamel in the basement, left over from Dad’s refinish-the-wrought-iron-fireplace-screen project? I did. I brushed that stuff on in the driveway after carefully not preparing or even cleaning the doors at all, scraped the excess off the windows with a razor blade, and presto: the car was transformed, as you see recreated below. I shall hold for your applause.
Perhaps the king of personalization accessories was JC Whitney through the 70s and 80s, where one could procure via mail such wonders as WINKY The White Cat. WINKY (yes, all caps, you have to yell it) would have been more aptly named Blinky (no yelling) as she(?) would blink in unison with your turn signals adorably (UPDATE: horrifically). Now, if that’s not a unique touch for your vehicle, I don’t know what is.
How have you personalized your car, past or present? We’re happy to hear about how you’ve made anything else on wheels uniquely yours as well. To the comments!
My Colorado ZR2 came with black bowties. I Plastii-dipped the other identifying emblems.Took off the graphic’s. Bought some 3 circle Toyota emblems and put them on top of the bow ties. Taco fanboys think it is an imported Hilux. I have TRD graphics to put on the bed. And some Toyota red, yellow, orange strips. All in.
Lowered, usually with wheel/tire combo pushed out to fender lips, is my DD go to style. Interior is built by stealing options from like three different trim level cars to get what I want.
Beyond that it kinda goes full bespoke. I am finishing a chassis and floor pan swap of a ’71 Travelall body on an ’02 Tahoe floorpan. Plus I put in Dakota wheel arches and converted the roll up rear window to a lift gate.
I have a half finished Datsun Quad cab 720 build with suicide doors (I used modified Nissan Titan King Cab hinges. Its awesome, the rear doors open like 175 degrees!)
I have a Datsun Roadster and a Miata I am going to mash together. All the miata suspension/braking put in to the roadster frame.
I have a Datsun 510 with an 80s Z22 truck engine and transmission in it.
A lot of my stuff will fly under the radar of most people, as my goal with a build is to do it in such a way an uneducated person would think it probably just came that way.
My 96 black Impala SS. 5% limo tint on the back doors and window, reflective red tape on the grill bow tie, sequential rear lights for the turn signals, a Chevy Astro Van overhead console w/ functional outside temperature & clock display (and aim able spotlights for the back seat). Also, Euro glass H7 headlights.
My handbrake being bare metal (I recently learned there was meant to be a rubber handle on it, but I’ve had no such luck) I had my aunt crochet me a cover to match the interior color. Lovely stuff. Pairs well with the wonderfully gaudy 8 inch tall flower shift knob and matching(ish) boot.
Tall flower shifter? That sounds awesome! Now I need one for my semi!
Have actually made real stained glass sunroofs and did several Van windows in the same back in the late 1970s.
Making them with actual designs or pictures, was a ton of fun.
And somewhat expensive too.
It was a different world then.
For now, just wheels and moving the front license plate bracket off-center to the tow hook mount so my 3 looks less like a mustachioed Austrian villain. On the inside, I replaced the OEM shift lever with a manual ball-style push down to releadse. It will eventually be done up like Mazda’s canceled TCR with a custom livery and all, but CorkSport has only confirmed they plan to sell that body kit but don’t have a concrete timeline yet.
It’ll also be in Reader’s Rides at some point where I’ll go a lot more in depth with it.
My modding stance has always been to make it look “OEM plus”. On my toy, leaving out purely performance-related mods…
Probably a lot more little things I’ve forgotten over the years, but the gist is that it looks like it could, nay, should come from the factory that way. I’ve run with guys that do things that say “look at me”. Not my style, but I won’t yuck someone else’s yum as long as they love cars.
My wife and I both have the same color ND Miatas with the same racing stripe and coordinating vanity plates. Does that count?
If they’re red it counts.
My high school ’84 Subaru GL had a PA system that also made animal noises, sirens, and some third category that I never used. JC Whitney, $25. Best money ever spent, as was the $500 for the car. The animal noises were the best. Rooster, cow, and dogs worked for so many occasions. Cows would even look up when they’d hear it. There was a cat that didn’t sound anything like a cat unless it was supposed to be of one being run over and I forget the other animal. The car also had teeth in the grille (replacing fake machine guns a cop made me remove in the interest of pedestrian safety—I told her, officer, they’ll push them into my radiator and kill my car before they hurt a person, but off they came), crosshairs on the hood, and some fake East African Safari rally stickers on it (at the time, people understood that it was a joke because the car was so slow), and it was a sort-of limo style “Happy Hearse” for Halloween with curtains in the back windows (kind of a pain with the frameless doors).
The stained glass idea is kind of fun. A better use than the stuff we had on several windows in the first house we bought, one of which was hiding a crack. Just one of the many things Inspector Magoo missed.
I need to find the stained glass clings to do this. That’s excellent. In my Focus, I threw an Autobots sticker on the sunroof, but that’s not nearly as exciting as this.
This is brilliant. the next car i have with a glass roof, i’m doing something like this
My goth ass fully gothed out my first 500 Abarth. Started with a black car, added matte black stripes, mirror caps, and wheels. Tinted the hell out of the windows and plastidipped the chrome black. My MR2 has received a similar treatment, but with red cage and racing decals.
My ’10 Focus has an OEM hood stripe. When’s the last time you saw that on a freakin’ Focus?
It’s an actual Ford factory accessory that of course nobody bought at the time; I picked it up from a guy who had a few of the kits still in the original Ford boxes and everything.
I’ve never seen another like it. And that’s for the best, many people here would say, but I enjoy it as the perfect complement to the cheeseball boy racer thing Ford did with the car’s interior and exterior styling for some reason.
My F150 has a psychedelic purple headliner.
My mom drives a 1992 Accord Wagon with bigger tires, black wheels, a large roof basket, soon to have mudflaps, and perhaps a lift soon? I assume this is the only off-road inspired Accord Wagon in the world.
My drivers seat smells like cheese. Does that count?
Limburger, perhaps?
There was this one time that someone sent me a grille badge…
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53939506425_e61f2f4fba_c.jpg
There’s a pic in my reader’s rides post but I have a chandelier in my car. Mine was one that some guy just made in Japan, when I got it in, he packaged it in a ziplock bag and it included hand written wiring diagrams. I ended up harvesting the connector and the switch from a 240SX dome lamp to make it plug and play in my car because cutting and soldering the roof harness to install a chandelier would be silly.
That makes me smile.
That’s not just out of the box: you’re not even in the same neighborhood as the warehouse containing the box
God I wish I had a picture of this. In my Sundance there was a square hole near the center top of the dash that really didn’t have a clear purpose. I always kept my sunglasses in there but they had a tendency to fall out.
So one day my friend and I went to the craft store and got some felt, then transformed that hole into a big mouth with red lips, white teeth, and a tongue hanging out. I still kept my sunglasses in it.
Jeep wrangler owner: NO scowly grill, NOPE, but loads of functional only stuff, skid plates, rock rails, front and rear bumper after the plastic stuff got wrecked off road. roof rack and rack next to the spare, gas can mount, and other stuff. That is part what makes jeeps fun. Each one ends up unique.
Hate to break it to you, but a Wrangler with skid plates, rock rails, bumpers, roof rack, back rack, and a gas can mount might be LESS unique than a stock Wrangler.
I had a car with a brownish headliner and sun visors. Fabric on the sun visors was falling apart. Tore it all off and covered it with a bright magenta/pink felt like fabric. I had no idea how to properly do something like that so I just did a whip stitch with thick black thread to sew it around the visor. All things considered the work wasn’t bad.
My dad ended up driving that car after me for longer than I did with the sun visors like that.
Ok, the stained glass sunroof idea is pretty cool… I should see if my wife approves for the van (the only one of our cars with a sunroof).
Outside of the performance & tuning mods, probably the best one was the micro-controller for displaying CAN data from the ECU and controlling the water-to-air intercooler pump and radiator fans that I designed, built, and installed in the RX-7. It was a good introduction to arduinos, and a nice refresher on digital logic design etc.
https://www.rx7club.com/megasquirt-forum-153/teensy-3-2-arduino-based-megasquirt-can-display-controller-1127707/
Well, the customization of my Lemons racer is about as unusual as you can get:
https://youtu.be/qKrwCLVHSkk?si=OQ5cen1A9FMv3e1d
Also Murilee Martin, that saucy minx who previously worked for the German lighting site, built his own version of Winky the Safety Cat *checks date* 14 years ago. OMG I feel old.
https://jalopnik.com/if-you-cant-buy-it-build-it-wanky-the-safety-cat-238353
Personalization seems to be more of a young guy peacocking thing. stink bug stance with the muffler cutoff was pretty standard just before Lowrider pickups with all sort of stupid graphics was then followed by the Fast and Furious fart cans and wings.
I did have a truly Mullet Camaro with Chrome side pipes added when the motor was swapped from a stock car. and I do have a 68 Yenko Hood on my Big Block 68 camaro, but for the most part, hidden stuff is always better.
License plate brackets! HINT HINT
PS God is that cat horrifying.
I second this. It’s becoming a theme. (mudflaps too)
I actually eschew personalization, because I drive crazy and I don’t want to be recognized.