Thursday, October 14, 2010

Choppapalooza!

Mercedes started the recent "four door coupe" trend several years ago with it's gorgeous CLS model. This chop "reverse engineers" the concept back to the early '80s 123-series. I've given the sedan the coupe's laid-back windshield and given it a period vinyl roof. I made the bodysides a bit lower and incorporated the door handles into the mid-body trim strip to help camoflage them, adding to its "coupeness." I also lowered the car on its suspension and tidied up several other details to make a more elegant four door coupe. The name follows MB's early '80s convention, with this model having a 2.5 liter inline 6 cylinder engine, and CS standing for CoupeSedan.

Keeping the same theme of four door coupes, this is my version of a Hyundai Genesis sport sedan. I used Nissan's old 4DSC descriptive, standing for 4 Door Sports Car. I eliminated the beltline dip and changed the front grille from the donor coupe, in an effort to give this luxury sport sedan a bit more elegance and brightwork. 

Moving back to Mercedes Benz, this is an attempt to bring back some of the class that was inherent in Benzes before the early 90s when MB needed to compete with Lexus. I've called this smaller-than C Class the 190E Heritage, and have given this 5 door hatchback 18" wheels designed to look like the painted wheel covers of the past.

Modifying the current C Class, I've given it a smoother aerodynamic appearance for this hybrid version, changing almost every line on the car. I've gone back to the '80s for the smooth wheeltrims, and painted the slats of the new grille. I've also changed the very clunky Mercedes door handles to a more contemporary appearance.

Meet the VW Taifoon. Yes, the German word would be Taifun, but I'm anglicizing it slightly to make sure Americans would pronounce it correctly, lol. This Golf 5 door has been given a more upscale appearance with added aluminum brightwork, reworked roofline, a carbon-fiber hatchlid and restyled taillights and trim. In short, pretty much everything has been changed in some way to give this high-priced Golf a distinctive appearance.

10 comments:

  1. Casey, these are a pretty cool collection of chops.

    1) Mercedes- you brought back a legend and made it even nicer. I have a lot of good memories of this car. It was the very first one I've been in and my friend's mom used to drive us to middle school in one of these. People looked at me as some sort of "snob" but my parents weren't that fortunate to ever by one.

    2) Genesis- very interesting design theme you got going here. Name wise, this makes more sense than the larger 4 door that looks totally different than the coupe. It also bounds better with its size.

    3) 190- The idea of a 4 door hatch seem unthought of before, but it would have made a very particle mode of transportation.

    4) C240- I'm not so sure how focused they are on making Hybrids. but this looks really cool. I know they're putting an electric B Class into production in limited numbers.

    5) VW Taifoon- the strip of aluminum breaks up some of the blandness as well as the models name spelled out in bold letters right above the rear bumper.

    5 stars!!

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  2. CASEY, HAVE YOU HEARD ANYTHING FROM MARIUS? HE WAS A REGULAR THEN JUST DISAPPEAR. DO YOU THINK HE'S OK? I HOPE HE'S OK.

    JUST WONERING.

    GRANNY

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  3. I'm sure he's fine, Granny. It's the internet. People come and go, they reinvent themselves, they change or move on. I'm not worried about him.

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  4. GOOD, THANKS FOR THE REPLY.

    GRANNY

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  5. Hi everyone. Well I've been burning up the Internet doing research on the Blood Safety and Availability Committee meeting. For anyone that wants the information (and there is lots of it) just check my blog post today. I promise lighter and less important subjects to follow. I just had to take this as far as I could go right now. Amazing what I have learned since Casey's comment a few days ago. I don't know how long it will take me to get through 16+ hours of meeting videos but I will listen to a little bit each day. Thank you Casey for the enlightenment.

    I will decompress with a little Project Runway tonight. lol

    Ta ta for now.

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  6. Casey, as always, I love your chops, but if I could drive any of them home it would have to be the VW Taifun. It screams fun to me. I love your reinterpretation of the Golf's rear end styling- especially the carbon fiber hatch and the additional chrome. And the color of the car doesn't hurt either ;)

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  7. thanks! my email is down for a while, apparently Yahoo is doing maintenance... would be nice if they told us beforehand....

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