“Are you afraid of spiders?” This is how the conversation that led to the creation of this 1970 Toyota “Celicarachnid” 3D work started. So, what is this ludicrous, eight-wheeled piece of classic JDM goodness all about?
Before we dive into the details of the outstanding digital contraption, allow us to talk a little bit about its creator, Aaron Beck, whose work you might’ve already seen on the screen, be it the big one or your computer’s display.
Born in New Zealand and relocated to Los Angeles a few years ago, Beck has served as a Senior Conceptual Designer for movies like Avatar, Elysium and Mad Max Fury Road. As for his video game roles, the most notable work includes multiple titles from the Call of Duty series.
Then again, the pixel master is also a massive car guy, owning a 1973 Plymouth Barracuda, among others. And when fellow artist John Horton (aka hightech_lowlife) asked for Beck’s vision on a first-gen Celica in return for one of his paintings—the good old art swap might just be better than any currency out there—the latter came up with this little project.
Created entirely in 3D, the Celicarachnid builds on the OG Celica that was introduced back in 1970 and was heavily inspired by the first Mustang, using a spider theme as its name implies.
Some of us have seen a classic, or even a modern custom car featuring this sort of theme at one point or another (my first was a Mustang), but the Celicarachnid’s power seems to stem from taking the concept uber-deep without overdoing it.
The technical complexity is just as stunning as the spider visuals
Not only does the Toyota pack double the number of wheel it had when it left the factory, but all of them can steer! Of course, such a tech masteripiece meant eight overfenders adorning the retro lines of the Japanese hardtop.
Underneath it all, we find a carbon kevlar chassis sporting pushrod suspension, which is detailed in some of the renderings. Admitedly, it can be difficult to focus on such details when the front end now accomodates a supercharged quad-rotor, with the blower featuring a twin-fang air intake.
“I love how the cylindrical forms of the rotary and the supercharger align, and how there’s eight legs to the intake plenum: four for the intake runners and four for the support brace. This shot also shows the pushrod suspension mounted to the carbon kevlar chassis structure. I was heavily inspired by seeing the awesome green tinted carbon kevlar construction of 70’s Lotus F1 cars at Laguna Seca during the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion,” Beck explains on Instagram.
Nevertheless, the posterior is equally spider-ish. That’s because it features bits like quad exhaust spinnerets, web struts and tunnel web air ducting.
We’ll mention one more aspect before we let you feast your eyes on the glorious images below: we hope this design gets built like the F1-styled 1932 Ford FE32 Beck rendered for a project that will debut this November at SEMA.
