On my local German car forum we have a thread about ridiculous-looking cars. This latest submission just came in from one of our members a few days back. The culprit is a Mk4 Jetta and result is awful. This car has altezza tail lights, green vinyl all over the once-nice silver paint, a grossly oversized muffler and sideskirts that have been installed backwards. In its current state, the car is hideous. But, with a few changes, the owner could completely turn the look of the car around. I decided I would do some photo-chopping and see if I could restore the Jetta’s dignity.

Here is the original:

And here is the car with my suggestions (I modified the original photo with Adobe Photoshop):

The modifications I made included:

• replacing the altezza taillights with smoked stock taillights
• putting the sideskirts on correctly
• changing the giant muffler out for a stock or aftermarket dual tipped muffler
• shaving the badges, including the VW emblem
• removing all of the green vinyl

These five simple things turned a ricer into something nicer.

If you’ve got pictures of a euro car built the wrong way and want to see me fix it up, go ahead and shoot me the picture via e-mail. I’ll see what I can do with it and perhaps start making this a regular addition to the blog.