Brooklyn’s resident art trolls, MSCHF, have graduated from absurd cartoon boots and handbags smaller than a breadcrumb to something considerably harder to fit in an elevator: actual, full-sized luxury SUVs.
For their latest project, MOTOMORPHOSIS, the collective teamed up with Lexus for New York’s Armory Week to take two pristine production vehicles, an electric RZ 450e and a hybrid RX 450h+, and subject them to real-life CAD torture.
The results look less like concept cars and more like someone’s 3D rendering software had a violent existential crisis.
Real Cars, Cartoon Physics
Rather than dreaming up sensible features like “better battery life” or “rear cupholders that fit a Big Gulp,” MSCHF treated the cars purely as clay. They call the sculptures “Form Cars,” though “Accidental Glitch Brought to Life” also feels fitting:
- The Circle Car: An RZ 450e curved into a seamless, ouroboros-style metal donut where the front bumper connects directly to the rear tailgate. Turning radius: infinite.
- The Twisted Car: An RX 450h+ violently spun on its axis like a wetted dish towel, twisting doors, mirrors, and glass into a gleaming corkscrew.
The concept borrows from old-school animation’s “squash and stretch”—the smear frames that make cartoon characters look like rubber when they run into a wall. Except here, the smear frame weighs 4,500 pounds and costs eighty grand.
Fast While Parked
Parked right next to their un-ruined, showroom-floor counterparts inside New York’s Chelsea Industrial, the contrast is hilarious. The normal Lexuses are precision-engineered to glide smoothly down the highway. The mangled sculptures can’t move an inch, yet they somehow look like they’re going 200 mph straight into the fourth dimension.
Auto collabs are usually boring exercises in custom floor mats and branded keychains. This one is weird, completely undriveable, and genuinely fantastic. Parallel parking, however, is not recommended.
Photography by Fritz Metayer for MSCHF / Matt Hartz for Lexus.
Edited by Ben VanderVeen · About Moss & Fog
