Auto shows are a shell of what they once were, with way fewer automakers exhibiting on the convention centers and those that are there not necessarily using the chance to disclose something latest. Porsche doesn’t even go to the Los Angeles Auto Show anymore, which left an enormous space open on the show floor for an additional brand to take. That brand is West Coast Customs, and while normally I might’ve briefly walked through, seen their awful builds and left, yesterday I spent about half-hour observing a automobile that they had on display: The chopped-up Maybach 57S from Kanye West and Jay-Z’s “Otis” music video.
A track from Ye and Jay’s excellent 2011 collaborative album “Watch the Throne” that sampled namesake Otis Redding’s “Try a Little Tenderness,” the music video for “Otis” was directed by Spike Jonze and released on August 11, 2011. Within the video, Kanye and Jay-Z chop up and modify the Maybach with saws and other power tools before drifting it around a shipping yard. It’s epic, and it broke the web (especially the automotive side of it) when the video first dropped. The song also happens to have among the finest automotive bars ever: “They ain’t see me ‘cause I pulled up in my other Benz, last week I used to be in my other other Benz.”
I’m truthfully shocked that the Maybach continues to be around. The automobile was sold as a part of Phillips de Pury & Co’s Recent York Contemporary Art Evening auction the next yr, where it hammered for $60,000 despite its $100,000 to $150,000 estimate (and the automobile having a retail price thrice that figure). At the least all that cash went to charity.
It’s unclear when West Coast Customs acquired the Maybach or what the automobile has been as much as in the last decade because the music video dropped, however it looks exactly because it did back then. It’s a totally wild thing to behold, with so many funny details to soak up just like the hood getting used as a trunk and the trunk getting used as a hood. It actually doesn’t look very protected, but a minimum of there appear to be some chassis reinforcements. I’d rock the hell out of it — if it even still runs, that’s. If it doesn’t, how hard could it really be to make it roadworthy again?
If you happen to end up in Los Angeles between now and December 1, go to the auto show. Even when all that you simply see is the Otis Maybach, it’ll be price it. There are admittedly a pair other cool things within the WCC booth, like Paris Hilton’s pink Bentley Continental GT (that she still owns!), and the primary show itself actually saw the debuts of a bunch of interesting latest models. Nothing is as cool because the Maybach, though.
This Article First Appeared At jalopnik.com
