Khyzyl Saleem is known for his love of the Mazda RX-7 and the JDM style in general. However, a little while back, he bought an older Corvette. So naturally, his many fans wondered if a widebody makeover was incoming in collaboration with his body kit company LTO.
So far, we don’t have anything, not even louvers. But in a recent video for Hagerty, the artist talks about his vision of the C5 Corvette. Apparently, “Kyza” was always in love with one particular race car when playing Gran Turismo, and that’s the C5-R.
As with the current ‘Vette, the name denotes a track machine. More specifically, the C5-R was a grand touring racing car built by Pratt & Miller and Chevrolet for competition in endurance racing. It made its debut back in 1999 and raced for six years.
It’s specs were extremely hairy-chested, as the 1999 LS1 6-liter was replaced by a 7.0-liter the second year. And get this: 610 horsepower was sent out through a manual gearbox. It looked a little different from the road car, as it did away with the pop-out headlights and mounted extra lights where the number plate would have been.
Retrowave Corvette vibes
But I feel like the general vibe of the video is still inspired by the two “Retrowave” mood videos released by Go Harder. You can see a tiny clip in this rendering process, and we added the real deal to the bottom of the story.
Going even lower than stock is obviously one of the main targets of this transformation. So after buying a $99 Corvette 3D model, Kyza immediately fits it with his own low rider wheel design inspired by the old JDM tuning scene. Next, a widebody kit begins to form around the new rubber, polygon by polygon, pixel by pixel.
Mods include a front splitter in the style of the race car, as well as hood vents and a subtle diffuser over the trunk area. The aim is apparently to have a buildable body kit, but we feel like it’s still just as wide as a VeilSide RX-7 and would cost a lot of money to produce. Still, we’d give this an RPM Potential rating of 5/10. Yes, it can be built, but at considerable cost, and there are other Kyza 3D creations that people want materialized.
