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Money doesn’t buy taste. We all know this, and yet it’s still difficult not to be shocked by some of the terrible custom cars that celebrities show off on social media. In fairness, there are plenty of celebs with top-tier car collections — think Jay Leno’s enviable collection of classics and Tom Cruise’s eclectic mix of exotica – but for every highlight, there’s an equally bad lowlight. Some of the worst cars here were created by celebrities many years ago, and since then, their tastes have gotten a lot better. But, for some of them, it seems like there’s no hope, as their more recent custom creations are equally tasteless.
You could argue that some of these cars were designed as a marketing stunt made for maximum attention, and not to be taken seriously. However, that excuse doesn’t wash when you find out that several were created with extensive input from their celebrity owners, with hundreds of thousands of dollars spent to create a car that was exactly how they wanted it. Given how some of these cars turned out, it makes you wonder why they bothered.
John Cena’s InCENArator
WWE legend John Cena’s car collection is generally very impressive, with a slew of desirable classic muscle cars and European supercars among his purchases. However, there’s one blotch on his otherwise excellent collecting CV: the InCENArator, which was built as part of the TV series, “Dream Machines.” Underneath the faux-futuristic bodywork and blingy wrap, the car is actually a Corvette C4, and it reportedly keeps the donor car’s stock engine.
Hardly a cutting-edge powerplant for this space-age one-off, then, and the interior is reportedly stock, too. The folks over at Carscoops even dubbed the InCENArator “the worst custom car ever,” but we’re not sure it’s quite worthy of that title. Even so, it’s not something we’d ever want to be seen driving. Tellingly, Cena has kept the car out of the public eye ever since it debuted in 2013, so it seems he’s no longer as keen on it as he once was.
Will.i.am’s Beetle
Ask any car enthusiast what they think the custom creation above is based on, and you might get many answers. But, no one would likely guess that this $900,000 one-off is actually based on a 1958 VW Beetle, and its owner spent four years getting the car tailored exactly the way he wanted it. The owner in question is Will.i.am, who’s famously one of the founding members of the Black Eyed Peas and less famously the owner of his own custom car brand, IAMAUTO.
It seems the American artist’s car designing abilities don’t quite match the level of his songwriting abilities, as the finished product is not exactly what you’d call easy on the eye. The reason the car took so long to build is reportedly that Will kept changing his mind over what he wanted, with the car passing between two shops before he finally agreed on a design. The project was originally intended to be a Porsche replica with a straight-six engine, but apparently, the end product takes design inspiration from everything from a classic Morgan to a modern Bentley. It’s confusing to look at, so you can only imagine how much of a headache it must have been to build.
Kim Kardashian’s Lamborghini Urus
Kim Kardashian has built a very successful career out of her ability to draw attention to herself, and her modified Lamborghini Urus is a great example of her marketing prowess. It was designed to promote her clothing line, Skims, and it worked –- ruining a Lamborghini is a surefire way to generate plenty of controversy. Christened the “Lamb-bo,” Kim’s tongue-in-cheek photoshoot with the heavily modified Lamborghini Urus saw her wearing clothing made from the same furry material that the car had been covered in. And it really has been covered — literally every part of the car from the steering wheel to the license plate was wrapped in material.
Whether the Urus was still driveable after its transformation is unclear, but Kim seemed pretty happy with the finished product, even calling it “the cutest thing ever” when showing it off on Instagram. It’s certainly distinctive, although that’s about the nicest thing we could say about it.
6ix9ine’s Lamborghini Aventador
If there’s one car that seems to be particularly vulnerable to ill-advised makeovers, it’s the Lamborghini Aventador. Countless celebrities have shown off their custom takes on Lambo’s V12 flagship over the years, to varying degrees of success. Rapper 6ix9ine’s Aventador is not one of the best of the bunch. To be fair to the rainbow-haired social media star, his entire aesthetic is hardly an exercise in restraint, so it’s no surprise to see that his taste in cars is just as outlandish as his persona.
The Lambo in question is no run-of-the-mill Aventador. It’s a top-spec SVJ, boasting 759 horsepower from its 6.5L V12 engine. It’s yellow underneath but has been covered in multicolored paint splatters covering every exterior panel. It features heavily in his music video for “Tuttu,” and has also appeared several times in the rapper’s social media posts. It’s a great marketing tool, even if the design itself is, let’s say, a bit niche.
Justin Bieber’s Smart Fortwo
Canadian pop star Justin Bieber’s car collection is both pervasive and very valuable, and on the whole, it’s pretty decent. Among his priciest vehicles are a Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport and a Rolls-Royce Wraith, the latter of which he had customized at West Coast Customs to look like it was hovering above the ground. Ironically, the Rolls is one of his less offensive mod jobs, as over the years he’s had several cars that really make you question what he was thinking when he rolled up to the famed WCC shop.
One of his worst is his custom Smart Fortwo, which featured a matte black wrap, custom black wheels, and a louder aftermarket exhaust. Not a great start, but the worst part about the car is the custom-made rear logo, which reads “Swag Car” instead of the usual “Smart car.” Thankfully, it seems Bieber didn’t own his swaggy Smart for very long, as he was only snapped driving it a few times in Beverly Hills, and very little footage of it still exists. Clearly, he wasn’t too keen on showing it off to the media, as in one of the few videos where you can see him driving the car, he nearly runs over a paparazzo while trying to get away from the cameras.
Justin Bieber’s Fisker Karma
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Justin Bieber’s second entry on this list concerns another of his early cars, this time his Fisker Karma. He reportedly received it as a gift for his 18th birthday, and at first, it was stock. But, Bieber’s obsession with customizing all his cars back then meant it was soon off to the shop for an overhaul, being kitted out in a blingy chrome wrap. The pop star was already being harassed by the paparazzi by this point, but his new car made him stick out like a sore thumb in Los Angeles traffic, and it quickly became a magnet for unwanted attention.
While trying to get away from the swarm of paparazzi following him around, Bieber drove the car at more than 100 mph, getting himself a speeding ticket in the process. In a separate incident, two members of the paparazzi were so desperate to get photos of his shiny whip that they crashed their cars into each other, accidentally turning themselves into the gossip headlines of the day. The moral of the story? If you’re trying to avoid drawing attention to yourself, it’s probably not a good idea to chrome-out your high-end luxury car and drive around L.A. blinding everyone else on the road.
Will.i.am’s DeLorean
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When he wasn’t busy confusing custom shops with his conflicting demands for an LS-powered Beetle, Will.i.am was hard at work designing a car for his brand IAMAUTO. He took a perfectly serviceable DeLorean DMC-12 and sent it to West Coast Customs along with instructions to turn it into whatever this creation is supposed to be, complete with a widebody kit and gullwing doors. The front-end design looks like something a game designer would create to avoid licensing issues, an off-brand sports car of the sort you’d see in “Grand Theft Auto.”
The wheels are equally blingy, although at least the interior looks like fairly standard luxury car fare. If the car was created completely from the ground up to Will.i.am’s tastes, then it would be fair enough, even if it’s not our thing – but it’s the fact that a classic DeLorean was destroyed to make this that really leaves a sour taste.
Chris Brown’s Lamborghini Aventador
Singer, rapper, actor, and serial controversy magnet Chris Brown has a long history of modifying cars, in particular, Lamborghinis. Not all of them look terrible, in fact, some of his more recent projects look pretty good. But, this Aventador modified to look like Brown’s favorite pair of Nikes is not one of his better projects. Apparently, the job was completed by a shop in California that charged the singer $15,000 to repaint the car — around 60 times more than the shoe retailed for in the first place.
Ironically, he’d probably have been better off just buying 60 pairs of shoes and leaving his Lamborghini well alone, because the finished paint job looks more like something a child would create in a video game. Luckily, it seems Brown got bored of the paint job relatively quickly, as it wasn’t long before his next Lamborghini project was seen roaming the streets of Los Angeles. That’s a good thing because it means fewer people had to suffer seeing this ugly Aventador in the flesh.
Usher’s Saturn
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Unlike many of the other celebs here, Usher’s custom car embarrassment can be attributed to the singer being roped into a promotion for GM’s Saturn division, so at least he was getting paid to do it. Still, he was reportedly given free rein to “trick out” his Saturn while MTV documented the process, and the resulting car looks comically bad. Think “Pimp My Ride,” but sponsored by GM, for some reason. The seemingly randomly placed stickers with the large “Usher” logo on the side, the overly shiny chrome wheels – all the mid-’00s hallmarks are there, and the fact these over-the-top modifications are on such an ordinary car makes it all the more ridiculous.
The car was shown off at the 2004 MTV Awards and was created since Saturn was sponsoring the show, and wanted to find a way to connect with a younger audience. According to a New York Times report, GM executives were said to be hesitant to put their name to such a show but conceded that “you have to take some risk in where you go” in order to attract a new customer base. It seems the person taking the biggest risk, however, was Usher, since his name is now forever associated with this thing.
Lapo Elkann’s Ferrari 458 Italia
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Lapo Elkann has had a colorful career, initially working under his business magnate grandfather Gianni Agnelli, who owned a majority stake in Fiat, and several other major companies. At the time Elkann was starting his own business venture, Fiat-controlled Ferrari, and it was here where he used his connections to bend the rules. Ferrari usually takes a very dim view of anyone who modifies its cars, but as the grandson of the owner, Elkann was given a free pass to do whatever he wanted.
He founded Garage Italia Customs specifically to modify Ferraris to demanding owners’ tastes and modified his own 458 Italia through the company. The custom Ferrari sported a full camo wrap, green and brown wheels, and a camo-patterned leather interior – sacrilege to Ferrari purists, no less. Even the engine cover was decked out in green camo, such was Elkann’s dedication to the design. He bought the car new and kept it for several years before selling it to raise funds for a charity researching treatments for HIV/AIDS, so at least even if the car itself looks pretty terrible, the money it raised was donated to a good cause.
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