Gallery: when car modifying goes bad

“Some things are best left alone”, proclaimed an advert for the Volkswagen Golf about ten years ago. It featured some pretty poor attempts at modified Golfs, and understandably upset the Golf community.

After all, the Golf GTi has been the doyen of the modifying scene for decades.

But maybe Volkswagen were on to something, because six foot tall exhausts, spray can paintwork and ridiculous wings can often turn a silk purse into a Max Powered sow’s ear – as you can see in our gallery.

Full gallery: a sample of the world's worst modified cars

Sure, there are some cleverly modified cars around – and there are plenty of modified cars for sale on Auto Trader – but less is so often more.

A cheeky bodykit here and a nice set of rims there can do the job; but gluing bath panels to your motor will only end in tears.

If you want a go at trying your hand to build something special, we’ve more than 9,500 Volkswagen Golfs, 12,000 BMW 3 Series and 4,800 Honda Civics for sale – all cars that are really easy to modify.

Of course, it’s not just not just the kids on the seafront that tweak their cars – check out what happens when footballers modify.