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Kawashima Celica has bonkers amounts of negative camber

Toyota Celicas are amongst the most commonly modified cars on the planet. Their owners routinely apply wonderful, often inexplicable mods in the name of personalisation, but we’ve never in all our days seen one quite as bonkers as this Kawashima Celica.

This is awesome, but all types of wrong.
This is awesome, but all types of wrong.

On show at the fabulously-named Nagoya Exciting Car Showdown in Japan (yes, that’s a real show) the Kawashima Celica spits in the face of conventional car design with a frankly ridiculous level of negative camber — its wheels are angled inwards at the top, making it look as if the suspension’s collapsed.

As if that weren’t odd enough, its wheels barely fit. The rims protrude from the end of the tyre by a huge margin and the wheel arch, which is attached with tape, slots (crudely, neatly — we’re not sure what) between the rubber and the rim.

The Celica’s owner, Kawashima, explained the car was created to exaggerate the three main points modders try to achieve in Japan — onikyan (cambered wheels), tsuraichi (tyres just barely inside the guards) and hippari (stretched tyres). He’s certainly achieved that, but in doing so he’s created a monstrosity that can’t be unseen.

The car’s only saving grace is the fact the presence of negative camber could be a huge benefit to its cornering ability. This setup can maximise the amount of tyre area that makes contact with the ground during cornering, thereby maximising grip. We don’t care how grippy it is, though, we’re not sure you could pay us to drive this thing in public but what do you think? Have a look at it in the video below and let us know how you feel about it in the comments below or on Facebook.

vVia: Jalopnik

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