Picture a Toyota Prius. Now erase everything you just pictured. What Crystal Eye and Body Shop Kikuta unveiled at the Tokyo Auto Salon is something else entirely. A machine that occupies the very strange intersection between a samurai in sheet metal and a prop from a blockbuster action film.
The current-generation Prius already marked a sharp aesthetic pivot for the nameplate, shedding the awkward, self-consciously modest styling of its predecessors. Tuners noticed. But while most kept their modifications grounded in plausibility, this particular build threw plausibility out the window.
The front end sets the tone immediately. A splitter so massive it could double as a snowplow, paired with a vented hood and flared aluminum fenders that swallow a set of 20-inch Work wheels whole. The sides don’t transition so much as detonate into the rear, where an enormous rear wing curls around the tailgate like something alive. Angular fins extend outward with surgical aggression. A deep diffuser rounds out the transformation, and Crystal Eye’s custom hexagonal LED taillights will soon hit the aftermarket, which is quietly the whole point of the exercise.
Then there’s the stance. Air Rex Odin air suspension compresses this Prius down to a few millimeters off the pavement when parked, giving it the kind of low-slung menace that usually requires a sports car badge to pull off. This bosozoku-inspired Prius tuning build commits entirely to the aesthetic. And somehow, it works.
What it does not do is go any faster. Under the hood, the plug-in hybrid powertrain remains untouched, still producing up to 220 HP in its most potent configuration. The looks scream performance. The drivetrain whispers efficiency. It’s an absurd contradiction.
Crystal Eye built one car. A showcase piece, designed to draw eyes to their aftermarket lighting products at auto shows. A marketing exercise dressed as automotive madness. And yet the thing is technically street legal. One has to wonder what Toyota thinks about that.
