Wildest Tuning Projects of 2026: An Off-Road Roadster, a Tiffany-Blue G-Wagon, and a Car That Doubles as a Speaker
Tuning shops churn out thousands of custom builds every year. Most vanish without a trace. A handful become instant legends. Dardoor.com rounded up the most 8 talked-about projects from established and boutique studios alike — and the range this year is wild: a superhero-themed BMW, an off-road Miata, a convertible G-Wagon in the color of a jewelry box, a Chinese luxury SUV with Rolls-Royce swagger, and a Mini that’s secretly a festival sound system and more.
The Joker’s Car: BMW 7-Series by Larte Design
German tuning house Larte Design has unveiled a striking new kit for the BMW 7-Series (G70). Finished in white with deep purple accents, the color isn’t painted on — it’s baked directly into the pre-impregnated carbon fiber itself. The internet moved fast, and the sedan now goes by an unofficial nickname: “the Joker’s car,” a nod to the character’s look in Suicide Squad.
The aero kit includes a front splitter, side skirts, mirror covers, a rear spoiler, and an F1-style diffuser with integrated rear lights. The wheels get matching purple-on-white overlays to tie the whole look together. Notably, every add-on bolts to the car’s factory mounting points, so owners can remove the kit entirely if they change their minds.
Mechanically, nothing’s changed: power still comes from the stock 4.4-liter V8 producing 536 hp. Pricing for the kit hasn’t been announced.
Off-Road Sports Car: Mazda MX-5 by Paco Motorsports
Paco Motorsports took one of the most road-focused cars ever made — the Mazda MX-5 — and turned it into an off-roader. So far, two one-off builds exist: Beachster, built for an owner in the U.S. Virgin Islands and based on St. Thomas, and Simba, built in Dubai for use in the Tanzanian desert.
The transformation is thorough: steel wheel arch extensions, tubular bumpers with recovery hooks, extra LED lighting, rock-sliding side skirts, a custom rear pillar, a vented hood, a spoiler, mesh paneling between the taillights, dual exhaust tips, FOX shocks with custom spring rates, lifted ground clearance, and off-road tires. Paco’s engineers also retuned the 2.0-liter naturally aspirated engine for sharper, more direct throttle response.
Pricing on these specific builds hasn’t been disclosed, but the studio’s past projects in this vein started around $4,999 as a baseline.
The Tiffany Convertible: Mercedes G-Class by Mansory
Mansory’s latest G-Class project, called Azura, might be its boldest G-Wagon yet. The studio chopped the G63’s roofline entirely, converting the body into a two-door convertible on a shortened wheelbase, and fitted Rolls-Royce-style doors that swing open against the direction of travel. A white soft-top, fully removable, finishes the silhouette — all wrapped in a Tiffany-box shade of blue.
The rest of the body gets the full Mansory treatment: flared arches, an aggressive front apron with big intakes, angular LED daytime running lights, fender louvers, retractable side steps, and wheels finished to match the body color. Inside, turquoise leather meets carbon fiber with blue stitching and accents.
Mansory didn’t stop at looks. The 4.0-liter engine gets new turbochargers, downpipes, and a custom exhaust, pushing output to 820 hp — enough for a 0-100 km/h sprint in 4 seconds.
Project pricing hasn’t been released.
Mansory’s First “Chinese”: Zeekr 9X
Mansory has a new milestone: its first-ever collaboration with a Chinese automaker. The Zeekr 9X gets the studio’s signature treatment, headlined by a grille styled after the Rolls-Royce Cullinan.
Other changes include a sport bumper with an integrated splitter and DRLs, a relief-textured hood, 24-inch white wheels, widened arches and side skirts, retractable footrests, carbon-trimmed pillars, a roof visor with a subtle rear-door spoiler, and a heavy-hitting rear bumper with a diffuser and quad exhaust tips. Inside, it’s nearly all white — snow-white leather with gold accents on the seats, steering wheel, and dash, plus carbon fiber and Alcantara throughout.
Underneath, it’s stock: a hybrid setup pairing a 2.0-liter turbo engine with three electric motors for a combined 1,381 hp, good for a 3.1-second run to 100 km/h.
The Mobile Speaker: Mini Countryman by Vagabund
Not every tuning project is about speed. Mini teamed up with Austrian studio Vagabund to build two Countryman S ALL4 models designed to function as literal mobile sound systems for festivals and public events.
Large and midrange speakers are built directly into the bodywork, subwoofers sit in the cargo area, and — in the silver version only — a vintage Walkman with headphones rides in the passenger area. Visually, the build stands out with widened wheel arches, 20-inch wheels wearing 3D-printed, speaker-inspired caps, and a roof rack made from aluminum plate and stainless steel mesh styled to look like speaker grilles. The rear side windows are swapped for external speaker housings made of cast polymer granite.
Mechanically, it’s unchanged: a turbocharged 2.0-liter engine making 215 hp, a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic, and Mini’s ALL4 all-wheel drive. The one functional change is a suspension lift for extra ground clearance.
Manhart MH4 900 (BMW M4 CSL)
German tuner Manhart took the already-hardcore M4 CSL and pushed it into hypercar territory. New turbochargers from TTH, a carbon intake, forged pistons and connecting rods, and a reflashed ECU take the stock 543 hp up to 909 brake horsepower and 878 lb-ft of torque — more than a McLaren P1 made. The gearbox internals were reinforced to survive the extra torque, and it wears Manhart’s signature black-with-champagne-accent look plus a set of matte black wheels.
Brabus Bodo
This is the coachbuilt hypercar mentioned at the end of our earlier article, and it’s worth a closer look. Unveiled in May 2026 at Lake Como’s FuoriConcorso, it’s a tribute to late founder Bodo Buschmann, built on an aluminum monocoque chassis sourced from the Aston Martin Vanquish and wrapped in fully custom carbon bodywork. Power comes from a hand-built 5.2-liter twin-turbo V12 making around 986–1,000 hp. Only 77 examples will be built, each fully bespoke, with prices starting from €1,000,000 before German VAT.
Porsche Cayenne Advantage GT750 by TopCar
Russian-founded, Dubai-based studio TopCar revived a design it first showed 20 years ago at the 2006 Essen Motor Show, reimagining what a Porsche Cayenne could look like with a full custom body. The new build is limited to just 13 units, takes about three months to complete per car, and is essentially built from the ground up rather than being a bolt-on kit.
One more, a bit different in flavor — Japanese tuner Value Progress showed up at the 2026 Tokyo Auto Salon with the “Beast,” a wide, aggressive body kit for the Lamborghini Diablo, going head-to-head with Liberty Walk’s usual dominance in that space. It’s a good reminder that even 30-year-old exotics are still getting fresh tuning attention.
