Mangled Monday: Identity Crisis C5 Corvette

Hopefully, you didn’t have a big breakfast because you’ll need a strong stomach for this one.

We’re sure that many will chalk this one up to Photoshop, but – while it is possible – it would’ve had to have been rendered by a professional. There’s no indication that this is just a rendering, so (for the sake of a little morbid fascination) we’re going to assume someone actually did this to a poor, innocent Corvette.

To begin with, the most obvious and arguably most horrifying feature of this hacked-up Corvette is the addition of the extra two tail lights. It’s obvious that the madman responsible was going for a throwback to the common customization trick of the ’60s, where savvy enthusiasts (and even some dealers) would pop in extra lamps to add a bit more high-end “Impala” to the mix. This tailight mod looks fantastic on the old-school C2s, but we can’t say we feel the same about it on a C5.

Then, of course, there’s the issue of the gaudy spinners. Spinner wheels look obscene on any vehicle, let alone a Corvette; whether it’s a Honda Civic or Cadillac Escalade, we’ll never quite understand the desire to add such a tasteless punctuation mark to a vehicle.

Next, check out the wanna-be coves painted onto the side. At this point, it just seems like the “designer” had a checklist of favorite features from certain generations and wanted to squeeze them all onto one car.

As for the six Bow Tie exhaust tips, well – we’re still not sure what to make of that. Part of us feels as though this photo would be a good medium to deliver the stereotypical “stay in school, don’t do drugs” one-liner to your kids.

Tying it all together is the subtle “Blue Vel-Vette” tramp-stamp scrawled under the chrome-finned license plate. Whether this is a nod to the 1980s film-noir movie Blue Velvet or to the 1950s Tony Bennet song of the same name is unclear.

After taking in the whole car, however, we’re not sure it matters – it seems like the creative mind behind this monstrosity drew inspiration from damn near everything. We’re almost glad that we only found one picture of the car; we’re not sure if we want to see the rest…