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!
When I got my 1996 Cherokee 9 years ago (just died this week…. RIP), I got a Dole/Kemp bumper sticker for it. Appropriate for the time.
Saw a decades-old Land Rover the other day—complete with a pretty new Ross Perot sticker.
Just perfect
Well back in 1974 I bought a 1968 Javelin from a police auction. I didn’t notice the bullet holes but I decided to keep them. Pretty unique.
Stickers. Lots and lots of stickers…but just on the glass. I do have a few (including the most important – my Autopian member sticker!) on the plastic bumper fascia of my ’97 ZJ. None of them are political; they either refer to the state where I vacation most often, or they’re something I thought was funny/cute.
The first two stickers were actually placed on that ZJ by my father, when I got accepted at NC State. They were mounted inside the windows, and are still on there even though they’re heavily faded. I started with the rest of the stickers the first time my mother and I went on a road trip by ourselves after my father unexpectedly passed away. The only people who thought we would successfully complete the trip were my mechanic and my hair stylist; placing that big Maine sticker on the back window when we got back home almost felt like handing the Jeep a trophy. It became a tradition from then on, collecting a few stickers to add every time I went someplace interesting in the Jeep. (I refrained from purchasing one at South of the Border – I only stopped for gas, and Mom refused to get out of the vehicle.) The stickers do get replaced as they fade or wear out.
Way back in the early 80s in art school I had a Minor Threat bumper sticker on my Volvo to ensure I wasn’t mistaken for a Deadhead. Then in the 2010s we plastered the air deflector on our Saturn’s roof rack with bicycle racing stickers.
Now my pickup confound stereotypes by having an NHRA license frame from a previous owner, flanked by stickers of an anime girl, OBRA the AMA and a brewery and playing Hardbass on the stereo
I lifted my Subaru Outback 1.25″ with spacers and heavy-duty coils and added Toyo A/T tires, netting me roughly 2″ of lift. I also scored a bullbar off a cop car from the scrap pile at work that will go on after I’m sufficiently satisfied that all of the stank of porkfat is off of the bullbar.
To date my favorite car mod was one done by a goth kid who lived a few doors down.
She drove a ratty old Mercedes handed-down-from-grandma sedan and had replaced the long gone Mercedes hood ornament with a crucified Barbie doll.
Drove a 2010 Soul in white. It so closely resembles a Storm Trooper helmet that I stuck a Storm Trooper Funko bobblehead to the dashboard. My first car broke down so often that I carried a spare shoe – wired to the car like a hood ornament. We called that one The Sneakermobile.
I decorate my car for Halloween. Nothing crazy this year, just a little fake skeleton and a plastic spider underneath the rear window, but last year I put spiderwebs inside too.
For years I wanted to have fake grass for carpet in my car. Then I got a regular cab Tacoma with no carpet. $40 later and presto, turf grass carpeting. It was popular with everyone who saw it and looked and stayed clean as well.
On my 911 I bought the roof rack from Porsche, then bought one of those wind deflectors to mount to the front of it so it looked like a mini Xterra setup. Let me drive with the sunroof open no matter how hard it was raining.
On my Cabriolet I broke one of the latch handles on the top, so I just gave up and yanked the roof off one afternoon and spent the remaining time I owned it driving it like a mini pickup truck; then wrapping it in a tarp when I thought it was going to rain. I could fit 55 inch TVs in the back of it.
I also put a ton of time and lots of money into getting 1993 Corvette seats into my 1994 Corvette, including a detour that involved buying like-new 2008 Corvette seats that now sit in my apartment on aluminum frames I built and caster wheels as dining room seats.
Shortly after I got it, I put Cadillac Escalade seat in my ‘96 K1500. It was not by choice, mind you…the seat frame on the original seat broke, and the only power GMT400 seat I could find in the local junkyard was in an Escalade. I never wired up the seat heater but I should have. The seat had a cover on it (work truck), but you can bet I left the Caddy headrest uncovered for all the world to see.
My truck also had Escalade mirrors (again, not by choice, that’s just what the lot had available) til my nephew broke both of them.
A couple decades back, as a young lad I put a sticker on my rear bumper that said “don’t be a left-lane tampon, let traffic flooow!!”
It would probably get me pulled over nowadays.
Wow, we need that here in Maine with just 2 lane highways all over once you go above Portland. People just don’t get it. Somehow it’s gotten worse with people on their phones.
I learned how to drive in Europe, where lane discipline is law (not a ‘suggestion’).
I was taught that when driving on the Autobahn you’re only in the left lane when actively passing and have to spend the same amount of time looking in the mirrors as looking through the windshield.
When I moved here I was horrified.. -_-
I loved movies from Europe where people flash and the car gets out of the way. Never happens here. I need a bash bar for these idiots here.
My first car, a 1989 Dodge Omni, received a Leki ski pole grip for the stick shift. When that car died, that grip was the only thing saved. It was installed on my first Jeep, an ’89 XJ, when I found that a few months later. Good memories!
I did lots of mods to my old van and now I’m doing some to my Prius, with many more planned…but as to “unusual”, I admit I don’t think I can claim that in the quality of any one mod. Subwoofers? Not special. LEDs? Personalizes it to me, sure, but not particularly unique.
I might be able to say otherwise if I didn’t get some of these mods from a site called Prius Offroad, literally dedicated to Prius enthusiasts. Lift kit, license plate light brackets, and now more things on the way.
My peterbilt 389 has a pink cb, pink interior leds, leopard print sheets on the bunk, and a disco ball. Why? Well, besides really liking it, I got tired of my coworkers borrowing my truck when I took a Saturday off and trashing it. Luckily for me all my coworkers are homophobic.
Even better one of my coworkers asked if I was trying to get women into my truck with it decorated that way. My response: “who said anything about getting women into my love shack?” Now none of them want to talk to me. Win win
Oh, I do that too. Everyone assumes I’ve lost it after too many years on the road and want nothing to do with me. No office politics for me! Even better, the boss gave me a cherry run, because it keeps me out of the yard. Win win win. Normalcy is for dummies. Weirdos win every time
Funny part is I’m not doing drugs, which goes against trucker stereotypes
Gosh but I appreciate your contributions. I love it.
I suppose the BMW-grilled Yugo counts?
https://ibb.co/VSMqMZt
Don’t try this at home. If you get pulled over by a dim-witted cop you’ll spend half an hour trying to prove it isn’t really a BMW.
Plasti-dipped the heinous stock wheels gunmetal gray on my 2023 Tucson.
I put a “HOWL if you love City Lights Books” on the back bumper of my Subaru so I can find it among all the other Subarus in a Montana parking lot (especially at ski areas, outside the REI, and the very nice “organic” grocery store). One time I was driving down the street as some youngsters beside me starting doing their wolf impressions. I wondered what they were doing until I remembered my bumper sticker. Missoula is filled with readers and writers.
Our son and daughter-in-law live in Missoula. We have visited a number of times over the years and love the “Ann Arbor of Montana”, as I like to refer to it. The percentage of Subarus in the local vehicle mix is impressive, from early 1980 through current models. We made the road trip from Michigan to Missoula in 2022 and 2023, but not this year due to life circumstances. I can’t wait to get back there next year. I take it by “the very nice “organic” grocery store” you’re referring to the Good Food Store? Or perhaps Natural Grocers or the Orange Street Food Farm?
It is the Good Food Store–Montana’s version of the Berkeley Bowl.
Lets ignore the jurassic jeep haha. But on the mustang, I got a custom ‘coin’ that perfectly fits in the trunk lock, and essentially deletes it so that its smooth across the decklid. But it can come out if I need to use it! Thats somethign I havent seen on anyone elses.
For my accord, I swapped the grill from the standard 2017 chrome 70’s bumper thing to an accord sports slimmer design.
I tend to be minimal on the customization front but I do have a bear-themed stickers on the back window as a message to a certain type of fella.
I saw a Dead Head Sticker on a Cadillac. You?
Yeah, saw that in the Laguna Seca parking lot during a show in 1988.
I saw a Throbbing Gristle sticker on a blacked-out Prius that flashed past me at a speed that will absolutely get you locked up here in Virginia.
The weirdest thing I did was probably to shave the antenna off my Audi 100. I even filled in the resulting hole and painted it. I wish I knew why I bothered.
I also put Saab 9000 turbo wheels on it,didn’t look too bad really.
I did a lot more “customizing” when I was a younger lad. Suspension, wheels/tires, big stereos, loud exhaust, etc. Standard early 00’s import stuff, but never full-on Fast & Furious shit.
My 4Runner is mostly stock with the exception of the wheels and tires, the TRD skid plate, and the rock sliders. My M2 is totally stock, it just has a couple of Danny Ric shoey stickers on the side windows. I kinda lost interest in modifying/customizing cars like 15 years ago.
Two cars at the same time, not me but my cars (note to self, avoid having clevershit friends). One was a Land rover MK11A, it had started life as a RAF MP vehicle, hence the gunners hatch above the passenger seat in the front, It then went to the forestry commission where it received some minor modifications. A second chassis welded under the first one and a sort of ‘roo bar across the front The front thing was made of old railway track, it was to push down trees with. Volvos at the time had decals saying “SIDS side impact defence system” My land rover mysteriously acquired remarkably similar decals that read “FIDS front impact destruction system” .The same irriot replaced the badging on my 412i with badges from a Ford Granada Ghia with the addition of a beautifully crafted chrome on badge on the back that read “Decadence is it;s own reward. I still have the Land rover, The Ferrari went the way of all such toys although it is still driving around somewhere, sadly without it’s modifications.
For reasons I cannot remember I drove the deeply odd Land rover from the wilds of Northumberland to London, it got a name then which has stuck, It is now known as the miracle rover because it parts traffic in the same way that Moses parted the sea!
The only change I made to my black 2016 Focus RS was 18 inch wheels power coated the same blue as the factory trim, and RE71s.
My buick has been custom repainted twice now. In high school my mom picked the paint scheme against my will so it became root beer brown complete with a way too ’90s paint splat on the front to look like foam on a root beer mug, one of my friends called it elephant j***.
https://www.pontiacventura.com/apollo_skylark_images/74apWAoakhbrRTBRFLT.jpg
Somebody aparently took pictures of it while I was on a religious mission after highschool prior to it becoming purple and put it on this website so here you go. Bask in it’s vaguely inappropriate paint job that my sweet innocent mom still never caught onto.
Then when I got to choose the new colors after my dad wiped out the quarter panel, I had it painted Honda Supersonic Blue Pearl with black GSX style stripes and red pinstriping.
That’s a bold choice of paint scheme. I rather like it—but I’m not sure I would have wanted to daily it back in the day
It rolled out of the factory in malaise GM baby poop gold so honestly it was sixes. But it also wasn’t my choice of color. At the time I’d have probably gone with black, but I was also more than a little boring as a kid. Not sure if I’ve gotten better now but we are what we are.
It’s funny how, growing up in the 70s, the greens, browns and golds were ubiquitous & faintly disgusting, but now, in this grayscale hellscape, I get happy & excited when I see baby poop colored cars.
nostalgia is a helluva drug
*shrug*