How To Not Mod. Your Muscle Car

By Dave Ashton

Modifying a car past its original design and styling can be a very subjective affair. It’s ever so tempting to stick on wide-body kits, flared wheel arches, spoilers and anything else that can be thought of to make a vehicle standout. The innate problem with car modification is that the original designers put a lot of time and effort into perfecting the design. This means modifying a car design can be a very fine line between beautiful and downright ugly.

I came across this Pontiac Trans Am Firebird on a German vehicle market website recently and the first thing that sprung to mind was a proboscis monkey like in the image above. sorry, I just couldn’t help it.

The modifications on this Firebird are clearly a very individual thing. It would be far too easy to go straight into mocking mode, but the takeaway here is any extensive changes you make to a vehicle, you always have to consider selling it one day and will someone love it as much as you do. It’s why the majority of the top line resto. mods. out there have clearly been modified, but they are subtle changes that still blend ito the original design. Modified enough to enhance the original design, but also generic enough so they can sell the thing.

If you intend to keep a car for the rest of your living days, do what you want to it, but this is usually the exception rather than the norm. The interior on this Pontiac isn’t too bad. Almost like an old truck in appearance. The color is some sort of pearlessence red and seems to shimmer from a deep red to a burnt orange. Not bad, but, the exterior is almost like one huge body kit covering the whole exterior. Underneath it all there is somewhere a 1979 Pontiac Trans Am lurking.

Maybe I’ve missed the point entirely. There maybe a scene out there I’m unaware of which goes for this exact look. They don’t care what the outside world thinks. That’s the style, that’s what they go for and everyone else be damned. That’s cool too.

So, if you’re not part of a certain styled scene and your car modifications aren’t a conscious effort to fit in there, just be aware that you may have to sell the vehicle one day. We are all visual creatures and if a car doesn’t please our eyes we’re definitely not going to lay down cash for it.

If this one does take your fancy, it’s currently for sale for €14,500.

 

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